In time of need, Andy Reid’s abiding trust in Steve Spagnuolo has been validated
Back in the late 1980s from El Paso, Texas, to Columbia, Missouri, Andy Reid was part of Bob Stull’s remarkable coaching staffs that ultimately produced three NFL head coaches (Reid, along with his longtime friend Dirk Koetter and Marty Mornhinweg) and another in waiting any year now in Chiefs special teams coordinator Dave Toub.
Then there was an unofficial honorary member of the group, Steve Spagnuolo, who had known Toub from their days together at Springfield (Mass.) College and was close with Stull-staffer Steve Telander since being his colleague at the University of Massachusetts.
Spagnuolo melded in. So much so that when he left the University of Connecticut to coach in Barcelona of the World League of American Football and the league folded in 1992, he lived with Telander in Columbia and became a constant in the Missouri football offices for a month or so.
“What’s that guy doing here?” Spagnuolo joked on Thursday, adding, “I tried to be a little bit like a ghost.”
By then, Reid had moved on from MU to the Green Bay Packers, but a bond had been formed. And not just because Reid enjoyed teasing him about the New England accent he’d grown up hearing from his own parents even after they’d moved to Los Angeles.
“I always gave him the business about pahking his cah and all that stuff,” Reid said.
More seriously, Reid was struck by Spagnuolo’s dedication and the acumen for the game in a man he considers a “football junkie.”
So when Reid took over the Philadelphia Eagles in 1999 and was putting together his first staff, he recalled Friday, he made Spagnuolo one of his first hires.
“I needed people there that I could trust; that’s what you do when you’re a young coach,” he said. “And I trusted him with everything.”
Turns out it’s also what you might do when you’re a more seasoned coach.
Which is why Reid again trusted Spagnuolo with everything, albeit in an entirely new context that could help shape Reid’s legacy, after making the decision to switch defensive coordinators following last season’s 37-31 overtime loss to the Patriots in the AFC Championship Game.
“I’ll always preface that (by saying) I think Bob Sutton (the former defensive coordinator) is a phenomenal football coach,” Reid said earlier this week. “This just happens in this league and in this business. I’ve been a part of it on my end. Sometimes change can be good.”
In this case, at least to date, it’s been borderline transformational for the Chiefs under Spagnuolo, who was out of football last year and thus felt like he was 12 years old again when training camp began.
Since a sluggish start that might have been expected with seven new starters playing in a different scheme for an overhauled staff under a new coordinator, the Chiefs enter their game against Denver Sunday at Arrowhead Stadium riding a three-game winning streak in which the defense has given up an average of 14 points and become an asset.
You could point to a lot of reasons for that, from the inspiring leadership and sheer fire added by offseason acquisitions Tyrann Mathieu and Frank Clark to the development of young players such as Tanoh Kpassagnon, Derrick Nnadi, Charvarius Ward and Juan Thornhill and the ongoing star power of Chris Jones.
But it all radiates from the man pulling the levers and, in fact, from trust: From Reid to him. From Spagnuolo to his staff to his players, and vice versa.
“I think he has done a phenomenal job of teaching his defense in a short period of time, and then getting results from that. He’s got the guys believing in that system. That’s hard to do when you switch over,” Reid said. “I think (general manager) Brett Veach has done a nice job of bringing in some players.
“Then, I think it tells you something about Spags, with the people that came here with him, that we were able to recruit here. These are guys that he has worked with before and they have enough trust in him to come here.
“That tells the players that maybe this is a pretty good thing right here. There’s a trust. There’s a certain trust that’s built in with that.”
That dynamic with the players was evident from the start because of a certain credibility Spagnuolo had earned from such career highlights as choreographing the Giants’ defense to a 17-14 muzzling of the previously unbeaten Patriots in Super Bowl XLII.
Before the season, for instance, Clark called him “a legendary coach.” And Mathieu last week spoke of that currency and his sense of chemistry with a man he feels like an extension of on the field and respects as a leader who can “command the room.”
Not to mention commanding a practice with a hands-on way that even trickles over when he talks to you.
“He brings a spirit, like a certain type of energy,” said Kpassagnon, who has thrived as Spagnuolo moved him from primarily a linebacker to his more natural habitat as a defense end. “We trust him to make the right calls and put us in the best positions to play.”
There’s that trust word again, and it’s worth noting that it loomed large as the defense was in flux through the first weeks of the season. At times, it wasn’t apparent to observers if anything was getting better.
At least in hindsight, though, players kept their faith that the longer they played together and more they understood the schemes the more they’d flourish. Or as Kpassagnon put it, “Time is something that we can’t stop, and time is something that we needed.”
Asked last week if he had been tempted to tinker amid the struggles, Spagnuolo acknowledged that such thoughts can come to mind when we struggle with anything in life and certainly in football.
“I’ve always found it best to believe and trust in what (you’re doing),” he said. “If you didn’t believe and trust in it, then you shouldn’t have done it in the first place.”
Spagnuolo has had to examine his convictions in a broader sense these last few years.
After eight years with Reid in various capacities in Philadelphia, he became a hot commodity in his stint as defensive coordinator of the Giants and took over the St. Louis Rams in 2009.
But he was fired after going 10-38 in three seasons. And after regaining his footing in jobs with New Orleans, Baltimore and back to the Giants, he was left out of work last year at 58 years old after serving as the Giants’ interim head coach.
“Nobody likes to be forced into a year off,” he said.
Just the same, he embraced it enough to turn down an unspecified assistant coaching opportunity and considered it “valuable” despite the circumstances.
For the first time since that fall in Columbia in 1992, he had a chance to take inventory and a deep breath and sit back and evaluate what he’d been doing and what he still hoped to do.
Back home outside Philadelphia, he spent time with his family he never could before — including giving out candy on Halloween for the first time and learning about such details as dimming the lights when you run out.
“You know, think about that,” he said, laughing. “I know that sounds funny, but it’s true. Never had to figure that out before.”
He had Thanksgiving and Christmas at home and went to his 40th high school reunion, all things he couldn’t have done if he were working at the all-consuming job.
But he also remained deeply invested in the game.
He visited NFL camps, including the Chiefs. Because “Andy was being good to me. Andy was keeping me around football,” he said. “That’s what Andy does.”
And he took a “big-picture view” of the NFL through numerous lenses.
He met up with the likes of NFL executive vice president of football operations Troy Vincent and studied officiating and got together with Dick Vermeil for occasional breakfasts. He spent many Mondays at NFL Films in Mt. Laurel, New Jersey, where he had access to all games and broke down tape and took “oodles of notes.”
“Did I grow?” he said. “Yeah, I do feel like that.”
Still, when Reid called him, it was natural for skeptics to wonder how much was a matter of mere familiarity and how much was a keen understanding of what was needed and how Spagnuolo would be able to fit and deliver.
Approaching the defining part of the season, Spagnuolo is the first to say the brakes should be applied to any belief the defense has arrived.
Just the same, Reid’s unwavering trust built on a 30-plus year relationship sure seems to have been justified.
And it’s quite clear what this guy is doing here now.