Why Kansas City Chiefs’ Steve Spagnuolo is right man to turn his own defense around

Provoking howls to fire the first-year defensive coordinator, the 2007 New York Giants lost their opener 45-35 at Dallas and were trounced 35-13 by Green Bay at home a week later.

For that matter, that defense gave up 31 or more points another three times that season, including in a rematch with the Cowboys (a 31-20 loss) and in a 38-35 loss to New England in the regular-season finale.

As it happens, though, that Giants team won the Super Bowl, in the playoffs stifling Dallas, Green Bay and the Patriots to a combined 51 points. That defensive transformation was emphatically punctuated by the 17-14 triumph over previously undefeated New England, which to that point was the highest-scoring team in NFL history.

More recently, the 2019 Chiefs surrendered 26 or more points six times in their first 10 outings. Then, you may recall, they gave up more than 24 points just once in their final nine games on the way to the franchise’s first Super Bowl victory in 50 years.

(Also: the Chiefs last season gave up 31 or more points three times in the first 10 games and returned to the Super Bowl … only to get clobbered 31-9 by Tampa Bay.)

If the examples seem random, they’re not.

And they’re potentially telling parallels for the Chiefs as they prepare to show us where they’re headed from here after a jolting 36-35 loss left them 1-1 entering their game against the Los Angeles Chargers (1-1) on Sunday at Arrowhead Stadium.

The common denominator in those previous scenarios is Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, the rare man to have carried out the same pivotal job for two different Super Bowl franchises.

So in light of this Kansas City defense having given up what seems a startling 65 points in its first two outings, we broached those points of substantial improvement with him on Thursday.

Mustering a laugh, Spagnuolo said, “I’d like to think that track record means something; appreciate you saying that. Someday when I’m retired, it will probably mean something.”

Trouble is ...

“It doesn’t now, because all these situations are different,” he added. “I’ve been down this road before, and it didn’t get turned around. So I know what that feels like.

“So there’s experience there both ways, good and bad.”

Indeed, Spagnuolo had largely a turbulent run in between being a key part of Super Bowl expeditions.

A season after guiding the Giants in 2008 to another top-five defensive effort in both points allowed and yards yielded, for instance, he began a 10-38 tenure as head coach of the Rams.

Then, in five different jobs with three different organizations after that, the only notable number on his resume was a Giants defensive unit that he crafted to be second in the league in points allowed in 2016.

He’d even been out of football a year when Andy Reid turned to him days after the ultra-clarifying defensive debacle, a 37-31 overtime loss by the Chiefs to the Patriots in the AFC Championship Game in 2019.

But the reason Reid chose him then, trust in someone he’d known for decades and worked with in his formative NFL coaching days, is the same reason to anticipate improvement now.

Only more so, actually, given what Spagnuolo has demonstrated with two top-10 defenses (in points allowed) in his first two seasons with the Chiefs and the continuity in both personnel and staff around him.

He’s proven himself anew, in other words.

But the NFL is always about what have you done for us lately. And every circumstance of every season is different, as Spagnuolo noted, as is every game in itself.

And, of course, there is zero guarantee things will get better … and certainly not if the Chiefs keep practicing and performing the same way while expecting different results.

But there is one guarantee: that the person in charge knows what he’s doing and that he has the smarts and energy and resolve to engage whatever can be done with the group he has — a group that may not be the most talented in the league but certainly has demonstrated over the last two seasons it has all the elements it needs to be at least enough of an asset not to offset the Patrick Mahomes-driven offense.

Still, even with ample season left to get better, Spagnuolo understands that the defense, even the team, is at a crossroads of sorts after its 36-35 loss to Baltimore last week.

Doubtless reflecting his demeanor at practice and in meetings this week, Spagnuolo radiated a different sort of urgency in his weekly media briefing on Thursday.

“You can feel that?” he said, laughing.

Pretty much from the moment he entered the room, actually.

“Nice bright sunny day, right?” he said as he stepped to the podium.

That’s about how he normally opens before nearly always asking immediately for questions.

This time, though, he promptly entered into a two-minute monologue proactively speaking to well-anticipated questions.

“It’s never good, and we know this as a defense, to give up 36 points; it’s hard to win games in this league when you give up (that many) …,” he said, soon adding that the “No. 1 factor” was tackling.

He then pointed to fourth-quarter defense and the ghastly work in the red zone, where Cleveland and Baltimore scored four touchdowns apiece in four opportunities.

Obvious as that all might seem, it says something that Spagnuolo felt the need to publicly admit the problems … even if he’s justifiably not inclined to share what he views as answers.

“I hope you understand that I’m not going to go deep into the solutions, how we’re going to change it, how we’re going to fix it,” he said. “Because (then) I’m talking to the Chargers, right? I’m not going to do that.”

Plus, it’s what he says to his own unit and staff that matters most, from schematic changes to coaching tweaks and perhaps some level of personnel shifts.

Maybe as much as anything else, though, it’s about setting a more intense tempo at practice.

Not that they’ve been lollygagging.

But Reid, he said, delivered a strong, “dead-on” message (that Spagnuolo declined to elaborate on) in a team meeting on Tuesday morning that has been echoed and evidently absorbed on the defensive side of the ball.

In a pursuit drill from earlier this week that Spagnuolo had reviewed on video earlier Thursday, he said, players “were flying; it set the tone for what (we) wanted to do in practice. There was a purpose in the practice.”

He added, “I think it has been different. I think it needs to be different. I think everybody understands that.”

None of which means anything immediately will be different on the field as of Sunday.

But all of which sure is a prerequisite for any improvements.

And even if we won’t really see how they’re going about it and what that might mean until Sunday, you can be sure Spagnuolo has a clear-eyed view of what’s needed and the willingness to take it on.

“You can’t stick your head in the sand in this business,” he said. “I mean, you’re done (if you do), right?”

And maybe you’re just getting started if you handle it right.

As Spagnuolo well knows from past successes that rose out of beginnings that were at least as disconcerting as this one.