“I Want To Get Patrick Mahomes Playing Some Defense!” Chiefs DC Steve Spagnuolo | Pat McAfee Show

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Joining us now ladies and gentlemen is a man who uh held the San Francisco 49ers on that first drive in overtime to a field goal which I assume everybody on their team knew yep okay we just won the coach of the defense that stole the show all year long just signed

Another extension to remain the defensive coordinator for the Kansas City Chiefs ladies and gentlemen defensive coordinator Steve Spagnola here goon how we doing what’s going on guys hey thank you for joining us congrats on a massive win congrats on a massive Super Bowl win and uh obviously all of our hearts and

Positive vibes are in the city of Kansas City with how that thing ended yesterday that is devastating uh for all parties and heartbreaking because that’s not what football is and we that’s not what that parade is supposed to be about Coach no you’re right P I’m glad you

Brought that up I mean it was as great of a day as it was it was really sad and of course our prayers and hearts go out to the families that were affected but uh just a tough way to end it we don’t want to take away from what a special

Accomplishment it was and and trying to share it with our fans but kind of sad and like I said we we pray for those that got affected absolutely and there’s going to be people that say it’s all enough but hopefully this will become much less common going forward and we

Can never be afraid to come together as a society and celebrate something special now moving on talk about celebrating the overtime conversation has been a big deal uh obviously because he’s new overtime rulle Inside the NFL just released some miked up situations where seemingly Frasier I believe is the guy’s name who’s theed

Ernie Adams seemingly of the Kansas City Chiefs where he broke down what the overtime rules are and what we want so as soon as the San Francisco 49ers say they want the ball you immediately know okay we got to hold him to three or less and with Patrick Mahomes we’re going to

Win this game is that the mindset as soon as it kind of happens coach well from a defensive standpoint Pat I mean our mindset is it never changes I mean we’re going out there to try to prevent uh points on the board uh it wasn’t like

Hey we can give him a field goal and we’re okay we don’t want to give him anything I mean quite frankly the one that you know the play that sticks in my car a little bit is that third and 13 unfortunately we get a penalty on it

Otherwise we get him to punt the ball and then you know maybe Patrick just has to leave us lead us down to a field goal and win the game but listen we our team our defense our players all know uh what we have on our offensive side of the

Ball we know who he turn it over to and so if you can I mean it was vital that we didn’t let him score touchdown didn’t want him to even kick a field goal but with three points and and Patrick going out there I mean we at least had the

Confidence that we might get another shot to go out right if we if we kick a field goal and we tie we get to go back out defensively so felt good coach let’s talk about your defense you said I think during the playoff run you said I have

All 11 guys have a high football IQ you say normally there’s at least one or two guys or whatever the case is at what point during the season do you recognize that and can you just dial up anything you what does that mean for you as a

Defensive player you could just do a lot more gives you more freedom what does that do for you having guys that smart on the field yeah it get it made us much more mult we like to be multiple okay Pat we’ve always been like that but it

Allowed us to do more um and in the statement I’ve made because I’ve been blessed to work with a lot of high IQ football Antonio Pierce was now a head coach in the league I mean Tyron mafew I mean I can go on and on James lontis

When I was in St Louis but this was the highest number of guys on one unit that we’ve had and when you have that I mean you feel confident in any type of in-game adjustment anything new that you put in during the week that the guys are

Just going to embrace it and roll with it and they did that all year long even when we had injuries Pat we had guys that would step right in there from a mental stand point and do the job I think to be quite honest with you Pat I

Think that’s a credit to our assistant coaches to have guys like that ready you know mentally to go in a game and not skip a beat Dre tranquil coming to us you know new from the charges and Nick gets hurt Nick Bolton we step in we

Don’t skip a beat because he’s a high cerebral high IQ guy and we were able to keep doing the things we do how many times have you said Wicked in your life coach you get the boss set accent com oh my you said charges Ed park the car in the garage

Right there with the charges I mean I heard the dun King’s commercial coming through SP I didn’t know you’re I mean that’s awesome I I couldn’t even imagine when you’re coaching that that whole accent coming out there that’s beautiful half yeah I half the time they can’t understand what I’m saying because of

That accent because it’s funny I haven’t lived there in 30 some odd years but it’s it’s stuck with me I guess yeah ABS as it should never lose it it’s a beautiful thing accents and dialect are a massive piece of culture and I think somebody’s identity and you should be

Proud of it so I hope you keep it forever the um let’s talk about the last play well third and four let’s talk about third and four okay you guys obviously know they pick up that first down drain the clock kick the field goal it’s probably over you show left

Seemingly that McDuffy times that thing up perfectly is that an audible on the field is that a call how much freedom is there to kind of maybe switch sides on what you’re doing based on what the other team sets up with well I’ll tell you what happened there Pat on that one

And that was a critical play I mean sometimes you don’t real realize how important a certain play is when you’re in the moment but you know that the that was right before that play it was getting close to two-minute warning so San Francisco let it come down we had we

Had made a call they had come to the line of scrimmage if you guys remember we had made a call but they allowed the clock to come down in two minutes so now we have a little bit of time to think about it at that point I had a thought

We should treat it like fourth down I had some calls on my fourth down sheet I got on the headset and I look directly at Nick Bolton because I have all the confidence in the world and I said Nick what do you think about such and such a

Call and when I saw his reaction was so yes let’s do it he was doing it with his hands I said that’s the one we got to go with so we put a new Personnel in and the guys executed what we had decided during practice that we would

Run like in a critical fourth down to us that was like a fourth down like we had to win that down um and listen credit to Nick you know having you know being that confident in the call and making me feel that way I mean that’s that’s the

Confidence I have in him and then the guys to go out there and execute that’s like Philly Philly that sounds like Philly Philly if you think about how important that play was I mean I I hadn’t thought about that till you said it Pat but listen that’s the belief you have in players

Right and a guy like Nick he’s our quarterback he’s our Patrick Mahomes and when he nods his head and says yes that’s the one to go with I’m all four that that makes my job a lot easier Steve we uh we are baffled by the fact that you didn’t get any head coaching

Interviews seemingly and I want to let you know we’re also very pissed that you’re back Andy’s back Patrick’s back Toby is back Travis is back it’s not fun for the rest of us but I can see why every player that’s ever played for you loves you speaking of playing for you

You did a little something different than everybody else tone has a question for you coach yeah coach it came out from people that were watching the film and who knows how correct it is but they it showed that you ran the highest percentage of of man against the Niners

By far that they have faced this season did was it how when did you know coming into the game that that that’s what you were going to do and is it is it just because of the absolute dogs that you have on the back end that you thought

You could match up well against their weapons well that has a lot to do that um I will say this uh the reason we shifted gears there were was twofold a I thought I got a great deal of respect for Brock C to be honest with you man he

I he was exceptional as I watched him during the week I thought he was exceptional he scared us in a lot of different ways but the way he attacked zones and the timing you guys probably talked about it all week as in break routes throwing it before even makes his

Final break and he hit a couple of those on us and we just decided that we needed tighter coverage we knew we had the guys to do it Trent and LJ and and Josh and Jaylen when they went out there so we made that shift I was healing it the

Second quarter but kind of went heavy on it in the second half the very first three plays I believe of the second half were all man uh I just watched it just not a half hour ago again and I thought the coverage was tight but that was that

Was confident in the guys we had and and really a credit to or compliment to Kyle Shanahan and his quarterback and how good they are against Z coverage okay we’ll talk about you watching the film again here after you know who are you doing you’re giving

Grades right now nobody I’m not even I’m not even get into it you’re you’re a football psycho can’t help yourself we can’t help yeah you’re a football psycho hey we got this stat from hembo uh immediately after the Super Bowl your Chief’s defense faced the number two

Three four and six offenses in the NFL this season in the playoffs they combined to average 28.3 points per game during the season against your defense only 15.8 okay against you guys why do you think during the playoff run when the best teams are playing and the best

Offenses are there and everybody’s at their height and their best why do you think you were able to kind of do something that nobody else was able to do these defenses like that Miami defense obviously it’s Nega 15 or whatever they’re going to say that’s the case Josh Allen though and the bills

Were rolling Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens were seemingly Unstoppable just a machine is it like do you just come up with like the strategy the scheme obviously you’re going to say your players because the way you are but like why do you think your te defense

Played the best ball whenever it had to against the best offenses in the entire NFL you know Pat I think some of that can go back to the fact that we had guys that had been through this before I mean a number of our guys we were young um

We’re still young but we were really young last year and they kind of went through it and we got some veteran leadership that re the guys are recog the moment Chris Jones I mean LJ sneeve now Justin Reed Nick Bolton I mean guys that have been in this kind of battle

And and listen we all know defensively that if you don’t step it up on that side of the ball in the playoffs you’re really not going to go anywhere it’s hard in this league to outscore people and we certainly don’t want to do that to you know Andy Patrick and the whole

Offense we want to do our share and we know our share is to get the ball back to the offense with as many many minimal points as possible uh and I think our guys is a credit to the to the coaches and the players to go out there and play

The way they did the intensity the passion that our guys play with is just remarkable hey I heard practice banging Super Bowl week I heard we were getting after it too all the way through that’s a m is that every Super Bowl did any change at this year what was it the well

No he no we stuck what we do is on Monday we put the Andy puts the pads shoulder pads back on now now we’re not killing each other Pat but we’re out there I heard it got hey I heard it got pretty hey we heard it got pretty real

No they were the guys were into it well listen they they didn’t play a game on a Sunday so they they needed that Weekly you know hitting people and we got after it pretty good without hurting each other it was great it was great great

Practice to be a fighter yeah I bet you coaches love that yeah coaches love that some players are like what the hell are we doing out here this is Superlight coaches are like you see the boys are they’re ready to go one of the guys you mentioned they’re obviously a vet going

To be a free agent Connor has a question for you yeah coach you said Nick Bolton’s the momes of the defense it feels like Chris Jones is probably the Travis Kelce then on the side on that defensive line and yesterday he said he was coming back for another 3 years and

His agent wasn’t too happy about the amount of booze in him and that he was being served but that was probably music to your ears but how awesome is it being able to you know talk to Bolton and also know all those guys on the back end can

Do their jobs when you got you know Chris Jones and you only need to cover guys for two seconds because how good he is and what does he bring to the defense just even on a day-to-day basis as one of those leaders on that front seven yeah Chris is a character that

Came out yesterday obviously and you’re right about his agents they were probably a little squirmy in their seats but he listen he uh the thing about Chris is his personality never changes like what you see is what he is and he’s he’s great to work with during the week

He keeps everybody loose um and he knows he recognizes the importance of an important moment and that’s when he usually shines but I tell you what the you know you mentioned all those guys which I think was great because it took a whole unit but when I when I throw the

Tape on what I get the most satisfaction out of is when the rush and the coverage kind of come together in other words you watch LJ and Trent and they got tight coverage and so the quarterback’s got to hold it for another half a second and then boom there’s Chris Jones or Mike

Dayne or or or George Kyle off this and and that’s how this unit has functioned all year long each piece kind of plays its part and it makes the other part the other parts better and a guy in the middle I I keep coming back to Nick but

The guy in the middle makes it all go it’s it’s a fun defense to watch it really is and then as we talk to like Eli Manning who described Antonio Pierce who described you as specs it’s like as you start watching it’s like oh this is all everybody’s on a string here it

Everybody’s playing the same music you know one band One sound that that is kind of how it’s all going it’s Championship run now what’s your relationship like with Patrick because Patrick uh I think after the first playoff game he said about halfway through the season I had to evolve as a

Player and realize like we got a defense that’s really good so I don’t need to maybe risk it as much we can punt the ball and let our defense kind of do its thing that was interesting to hear especially from a guy who everybody wants to say like this is the greatest

Quarterback of all time his ego could get in the way and say like no our offense going to do this so for him to be open and say like I had to realize that I need to not mess it up for our defense in the middle of the Season what

Is your relationship with him and what do you see behind the scenes out of that guy that like legitimizes all the goat talk that’s currently happening just six years into his NF career yeah I mean listen what you’re saying is exactly Patrick’s a team guy he’s all about

Winning he’s all about team and and you know when you’re on the other side of the ball that makes you feel tremendously good that was a huge huge compliment that Pat paid to all of the defensive coaches and players when he made that statement and we believe in

Him the same way and it’s a two-way street here but you watch Pat Patrick Mahomes operate dayto day he walks by my office every day on his way to the quarterback meeting room or when he’s on the field and it’s always about making all the other guys better it’s not

Patrick doesn’t sit out there and make it all about him he wants to he wants to win so bad he doesn’t care how it happens and that’s the beauty of Patrick Mahomes and it’s the beauty of the rest of the guys who have all kinds of confidence in him and they they’ll roll

With him at any time we rolled with him than like I say thank God we had Patrick BS at the end of the game because you know you give up a field goal and you’re just not really sure what’s going to happen and he comes right down and scores and we all

We all knew what was going to happen watching I mean everybody watching literally everybody watching I guess except for Niners fans probably and that ners defense phenomenal as well like not even but it’s he he already has like the Tom Brady effect like oh you gave Patrick

Mahomes a chance here and he’s gonna he’s only 28 years old spcs he’s only it makes no sense amazing he’s he talked about growing up in a locker room you think that helped obviously I I gotta believe it did I tell you what I’ve been trying to do guys I wanted to

See if he could be the first two-way player we can get him over safy to play corner I don’t I don’t think coach Reed’s gonna go for it but how about that right that with that set of Legacy hey he’s got some speed too you know he

He’ll start open up the St a little bit listen this that guy can do whatever he wants if he wanted to be a the pingpong champion he could do that he could be a go he could be a golf pro if he wanted to be I mean he’s just that naturally

Gifted and he’s a great person I love being around him I mean just all kinds of energy well he’s very thankful that you’re the defense coordinator for his team and that the rest of the NFL seemingly not interested in you how about no more old people are allowed to

Be hired nope as head coaches no chance which sucks bags I want to let you know that sucks you’re not supposed to be there for three more years Bruce has a question for you die hard Giants fan yeah coach first of all thank you for the contributions to those uh Giants

Super Bowls um I read that at halftime against the bills um you kind of switch the defensive lines ring lanes and um played more Zone coverage in the second half when you were playing man in the first half can you just talk a bit about how you approach halftime adjustments

And how important those were to the Super Bowl run yeah Bruce I listen um the one of the things about halftime adjustments is if you’re make I me we all have as coaches have ideas of we need to change this we need to do that but a lot of

Times it depends on what the players can handle and I’m going to go back to what what Pat brought up about the the number of high high Q plays we have you can’t make those adjustments on the run in a 12 minute halftime adjustment period unless you have guys that you know can

Mentally you know absorb it first and then produce it on the field I it’s funny I I don’t my mind is blocked on the Buffalo game I’m sure what you’re saying is is true I just know that Josh Allen is not an easy guy to defend he’s

One of the toughest ones in the league and we we kind of scratched and battled in that game I mean he got him down there and they missed that field goal thank God for us but um anytime we feel like we’re making a good halftime adjustment it’s just because we’re

Complimenting what we think our players could do yeah and the High football IQ that’s like what the Patriots had for all that time where they were able to have four different strategies seemingly going into the game making quarterback see ghost feels like you guys are in the

Middle of that run can you take me through a week for you so like Sunday game then Sunday night we’re starting to plan for the next quarterback offense and then you’re putting you’re by what time do you know what you’re going to be doing to the next team because right now

You’re the guy on the defensive oh yeah hey you’re the guy on the defens side of the ball so I would just like to know like your process so at what moment like on a Tuesday do you know what the plan’s going to be for Wednesday install like

When do you know what you’re going to do to the person well I mean first of all you guys know it’s not one guy I mean I I keep going back OC OC OC I’m sorry but yeah yeah no but you know what I mean it’s it’s it’s really important that uh and

We’re a collaborative group when we do a game plan um listen when a game ends on Sunday if it’s an away game I’m on the plane we all watch it and then try to get some rest Sunday night but Monday is a complete grind with no players there

Uh players usually come in on Tuesday I would say by the time we get to Tuesday evening we have a pretty good idea of what we’re going to of what we’re going to do now there’s some situational things that come up later in the week

And I to be honest with you guys I always begin Myself by looking at third down fourth down two minute like all the critical situations I do on Monday before we get together as a staff and start doing first and second down but we

We we have a we have a great group that works collaboratively through the week and then again we keep coming back to the players um because they can absorb it and embrace it and they work at understanding it you know something good comes out on Sunday are all your coaches back next

Year uh as of right now yeah fortunately for us I tell you that’s one thing I was just talking to one of our assistants now but there we got three young guys here quality control guys that should be you know full-time assistants right now but sometimes when you go on these long

Playoff runs and it’s been five years for us you know fortunately for us we don’t ever want to give it up but all these jobs for these guys go by the wayside because people don’t want to wait and it’s a it’s a blessing and a

Curse but I we’ve got a we’ve got a great staff here I know they’ll be there’ll be great great coordinator some of them going to be head coaches and I can’t wait till that happens for them yeah yeah hopefully it’ll happen sooner or later for the rest of everybody in

The NFL he got the whole staff back you hear he said our staff’s great staff is great staff’s phenomenal they’re they’re all back the players seeming it’s against the rules yeah they’re all they’re all back well I tell you the one the one thing I do fear guys

We have a we have a quite a number of defensive guys whose contracts are up and we know we can’t you know we can’t keep everybody one of the things I was praying for each week during the playoffs was to get another week working with these guys because I I’ve been in

It long enough you guys know it changes every year that room changes and this was one of the best rooms I’ve ever been blessed to have and working with them every day was just a joy so it’ll change you know every every every group changes

Yeah V will figure it out that’s a whole I mean it’s a whole which he should have to retire too amen Conor’s got a question for you coach no I need my guy vich I know don’t let my guy V again no no we need him to retire we we need you

To retire we need Reed to retire we need Patrick Mahomes to say you know what Four’s enough him retire we need a whole thing SP that’s what we need Conor’s got a question for you yeah coach when you’re going into games against teams and whether it’s the playoffs or even

Later in the season like for instance the the Niners I believe their last loss before you guys was to the Ravens now do you go back and do you watch tape of the Ravens to see what they’re doing and then do you pull from that whether it be

Plays or strategies that they’re using or is it mostly like hey we do what we do I’m coach spags I’m the best DC in the history of the National Football League I don’t need to pull from anybody or how or how does that work no but I

Tell you this first of all that was one of the games we looked at because uh Mike McDonald actually Mike and I worked together at Baltimore he was my quality controller and so there’s some similarities in scheme but I’m hey we’re a beg Bor and steel profession I mean

I’m not that listen I’ll I’ll steal an idea or take something somebody else we’re not that uh stuck on what we do but I think there is something to be said for going and looking at tape of a team that successfully defended an offense so there is a lot of that

Baltimore was one of the games we picked up there was a couple others um and then we we believe in looking at games of teams that have a similar defense to we run like a four down front as opposed to a three four because we think like Run

Game uh people will attack it the same way but Baltimore was one of those games I thought they did a terrific job against San Francisco in that game they played them okay well let’s talk about some of these teams because it feels like you are the Puppet Master for well

You and your staff obviously in your team coach uh Di’s got a question for you last one actually yeah coach a a lot of people were shocked or surprised that the Ravens and the ners particularly in the third quarter just stopped running the football now was that a shock to you

Or as well or was that your goal was that part of the game plan to get because that was their obviously those two team strengths mostly and is that is that something that you wanted to happen obviously yeah because we were told Roger Goodell told them they’re not

Allowed to run anymore because Taylor Swift needs to make through the Super Bowl the TA you guys are into the Taylor Swift effect just telling you why I was told on the internet no but that was a conversation like hey they stopped doing what they were good at and everybody’s

Like that’s a bad decision by them but we think there’s a chance that you potentially your defense was a reason why they did that was that a surprise to you and did you expect it great question toad well what’s saying is is true I mean one of our goals against both those

Teams was to stop the run forced to try to get them onedimensional um now both games were close enough that I thought maybe they would stick with it a little bit more but look at you know those are those are smart offensive coaches they make decisions for certain

Reasons and I think in both those games we at least I thought hung in there against the run and maybe they decided that the best way for them to um you know get some points on the board be a little bit more explosive was to throw

It but listen we got to defend whatever they do and I we were scared to death of both those teams right on the football okay well it sounds like you’re going to be scared to death to a couple more championships over the next few years because for some reason everybody’s

Staying in beautiful Kansas City thank you so much for the time what’s the offseason look like you’re already watching film we’re already preparing we’re doing a little film but listen I’m getting on a plane tomorrow I’m like go down to Sunny Miami enjoy a little bit

Of time down there with my wife because she deserves it and then uh get back here and get back at it I mean the combine’s right around the corner guys it’s like two weeks from now we’re at the combine it’s like it happens quick yeah we did not know that we actually

Scheduled off for the combine it’s in Indianapolis we had we thought it was at least a month away it’s very quick boom it’s right there yeah hey if we’re um if we’re doing anything it’s combine will you stop by we’ll be in the in the stadium if we’re doing anything

Absolutely Bank it put it put it in the books boom all right we will put it in the books enjoy Miami you’re the man ladies and gentlemen four times Super Bowl champion defense coordinator for the chief St [Applause] Magnola