Arrowhead Pride
This isn’t how the Kansas City Chiefs envisioned the 2025 season beginning.
After dropping their second straight game to the Philadelphia Eagles last Sunday, the Chiefs stand at 0-2 — and occupy last place in the AFC West. Going into the season, Kansas City expected to contend for its third Super Bowl trophy in four years — and while that would still be nice, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Lombardi trophies aren’t won in one, either.
First, you have to get rid of that goose egg in the win column.
The last team to show us how it’s done was the 2007 New York Giants, who started their season 0-2 before defeating the mighty New England Patriots 17-14 in Super Bowl XLII — a game that remains one of the best defensive performances in Super Bowl history.
And who was the Giants’ defensive coordinator? Current Kansas City DC Steve Spagnuolo — who remembers that after that season in New York, he was with another team that started 0-2.
“Everybody thinks you’re going to repeat history,” he noted. “But it’s hard to do.
“That was a very special year. What I do remember about it is nobody panicked. Nobody jumped ship. Everybody kind of stuck with it.”
In retrospect, Spagnuolo realizes it easily could have gone another way.
“I was new that year, ” he recalled. “The defense could have said, ‘This guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about. What are we doing all this stuff for?’”
But the season’s turning point was already upon them. In Week 3, the Giants went on the road to play Washington.
“It was pretty nip and tuck,” Spagnuolo said of the matchup with New York’s NFC East rival, “and then we had a big goal-line stand in the fourth quarter. I think we stopped them on a fourth down.”
Spagnuolo remembers it correctly. Trailing 24-17, Washington drove down the field with no timeouts remaining, spiking the ball at the New York 1-yard line to stop the clock with 58 seconds left. The Giants’ defense held on three straight plays to leave Washington with its first win of the season.
“That kind of turned everything [around],” said Spagnuolo. “Then we went on a little bit of a run.”
The six-game winning streak that began that afternoon at FedEx Field led to a 10-4 finish, earning New York a Wild Card berth. Then in the postseason, Spagnuolo’s defense allowed 20 or fewer points to four straight teams — just 17 to the Patriots, who had averaged more than twice as many points per game during their undefeated season.
But the Chiefs can’t think about all of that right now. Just as New York did 18 years ago, Kansas City has to take care of this weekend’s business first.
“Quite honestly, all I’m really thinking about is this next game,” said Spagnuolo. “not what’s going to happen down the road. I’m sure Coach Reid has talked about it. All you’re doing is trying to find a...
