Unpacking Kansas City Chiefs coordinator Steve Spagnuolo’s Super Bowl rematch vs. Brady
Thirteen years ago this week, Steve Spagnuolo became one of the most coveted commodities in the NFL by orchestrating a 17-14 toppling of the undefeated New England Patriots, and Tom Brady, in Super Bowl XLII.
As defensive coordinator of the New York Giants, he concocted a scheme that stifled Brady (five sacks) and otherwise muzzled a team that led the league that year with 36.8 points a game.
A year later, his career seemed to take further flight when he became the head coach of the St. Louis Rams.
Then, alas, his trajectory rapidly plummeted, starting with going 10-38
in three seasons with the Rams.
Other than coordinating a Giants defensive unit that was second in the league in points allowed in 2016, it seemed his career had long since peaked when they ushered him out following the 2017 season after he served as interim coach in the wake of the discharged Ben McAdoo.
He didn’t coach at all in 2018. And he feared he may not be able to get back in the game as he was turning 59 years old.
But that time proved to be a portal, not mere limbo, for numerous reasons that have resurrected Spagnuolo’s career.
Now he’s at a new pinnacle with a certain fascinating symmetry to it:
As they seek to defend their triumph in Super Bowl LIV, the Chiefs on Sunday in Tampa will play the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Brady.
And while the game will be about many more dynamics than just that, this element of the matchup has another compelling component to it.
Two years ago when the Chiefs lost the AFC Championship Game to New England 37-31 after Brady dissected the defense in overtime, coach Andy Reid decided to fire defensive coordinator Bob Sutton and essentially start over on defense.
The decision was painful for Reid partly because of a sense of loyalty to Sutton that seemed to preclude him from making a change sooner despite the defense having been a liability for several seasons.
From the outside looking in, anyway, that admirable characteristic of loyalty also seemed to be a concerning part of his rationale for hiring Sutton’s successor, Spagnuolo, a man Reid had known since the 1980s (including from Spagnuolo’s pop-ins at Mizzou) and gave his first full-time NFL job in 1999 with the Eagles.
But one of the most crucial maneuvers of Reid’s career, a move that has helped change the perception of him to a coach who might never win the big one to one of the best in NFL history, wasn’t about some sort of blind loyalty.
Sure, it was about familiarity and a certain comfort that comes with that. But Reid moved decisively out of conviction, not because it was something safe. And there’s a difference between deep trust and sheer sentimentality.
And the reason Reid on Tuesday reiterated that it was “a no-brainer” was more about fit and the moment at hand and a feel for all that Spagnuolo had left to give.
Which was something Spagnuolo took a proactive role in prompting even while theoretically dormant in 2018 — a year he likes to call both challenging and rewarding.
The energetic, personable and reflective Spagnuolo, who says he has a list four or five pages long of what he learned from what went awry with the Rams, spent 2018 replenishing himself with family time but also sharpening the saw.
“I would recommend it to anybody,” he said Tuesday. “Nobody wants to get out of work … but there’s a lot of value to looking at anything big picture. When you can sit back, kind of relax a little bit, take a deep breath and then look at things, I think you see things differently.”
So, he said soon after the Chiefs hired him, he came to relish the opportunity to reassess and take a “big-picture view of the NFL and the game of football, as opposed to being in these buildings during the season and having the blinders on (toward) just the team you’re going to play.”
Just the same, he spent many Mondays at NFL Films in nearby Mt. Laurel, New Jersey, where he exhaustively broke down tape of infinite games and took “oodles of notes.” And by doing some radio and TV work, he said, he even came to consider questions from the media in a new way.
“Sometimes as coaches,” he said in his first interview after joining the Chiefs, “we don’t see the forest for the trees.”
And sometimes the media and fans can’t see it, either, considering how any skepticism when he was hired has dissipated since. And when he was making the case for the benefits of stepping away just before the 2019 season, Spagnuolo joked, “We’ll find out, right?”
It took some weeks, even months, to see the dividends as Spagnuolo installed a new scheme while engaging a largely revamped lineup featuring pivotal acquisitions Tyrann Mathieu and Frank Clark.
But late in the season, the Chiefs held five straight opponents below 20 points, and the defense was imperative in the postseason run to the first Super Bowl triumph for the franchise in 50 years.
In the process, Spagnuolo was reviving what in the past had made him “a legendary coach,” as Clark had called him entering that season.
And the notion has only been amplified this season, during which the Chiefs beat Tampa Bay and Brady 27-24 to make them 2-0 against Brady (along with a 23-16 win at New England in 2019) since Spagnuolo came to Kansas City.
While the defense has had some ups and downs, it also held opponents to 20 points or fewer in nine of the 15 regular-season games the Chiefs suited up the varsity and has played a major part in the two postseason victories to get back to the Super Bowl.
That’s all plenty attributable to Spagnuolo, whether schematically or in his connection with players.
His wisdom is evident, Mathieu said, and his demand for preparation and detail infectious. Moreover, Mathieu added, he is flexible enough to put players in positions to flourish instead of forcing them to fit pre-conceived notions.
And players respond to him all the more because of their understanding of his history, Mathieu said.
Which brings us back to his own past with Brady — who remembers that past Super Bowl meeting ruefully.
At Super Bowl media day on Monday, Brady managed a smile while calling it “one of my least favorite football memories” and expressing his admiration of Spagnuolo.
“I think Spags runs a great scheme and I think he really caters to the strength of his players,” Brady said. “And I think his schemes evolved different times, and I’ve played him several times over the last, I don’t know, 13, 14 years. I think he’s a tremendous coach. And everyone seems to love to play for him.”
For his part, Spagnuolo expressed enormous respect for Brady, calling him “cerebral” and “a step ahead of everything.” Trying to neutralize him will mean constant adjustments even within the game, he added, including knowing how to keep defenses disguised.
“As we say, ‘don’t let him read our mail,’ ” Spagnuolo said. “Because if he can read our mail he knows exactly what to do.”
If it should happen that the Chiefs can keep the cosmic letter-opener hidden, Spagnuolo suddenly will have been the coordinator for three Super Bowl championships … and surely would enhance his chances at being a head coach again much like 13 years ago.
If that opportunity arises and tempts him away from what he considers “the best job in America” working for Reid, he figures he’ll be much better-equipped for it now.
“I believe that people in any business ... gain more perspective and more value to how to do a job when you’ve already done it and maybe you’ve made some mistakes,” he said, later adding, “As long as you’re willing to learn from prior mistakes, I think that just makes you better at whatever you do.”
This story was originally published February 6, 2021 at 5:00 AM.