Arrowhead Pride
Kansas City’s defensive coordinator has no illusions about the improvement needed from his unit.
Kansas City Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo hardly seemed a victor as he addressed the media on Tuesday for the first time since Sunday’s narrow 30-27 victory over the Carolina Panthers.
In particular, Spagnuolo regrets seeing his defense give up yet another late touchdown and allow a successful two-point conversion that tied the game with less than two minutes remaining in regulation. The situation should have been very familiar to Kansas City’s defenders.
“We’ve been through this,” Spagnuolo recalled. “We’ve actually practiced this a couple of times on purpose. I’ve put the guys in situations in a walk-through where I’ve said, ‘Ok, they just scored. If we stop the two-point play, we win the game.’
“I think our guys were ready to play the play. It didn’t work out that way. That’s what’s kind of got me upset.”
Spagnuolo admits that the Chiefs’ alarming defensive problems at this key stretch of the season are due to issues both with the pass rush and pass coverage.
“It’s a combination of everything,” he remarked. “We talked about it at halftime. I thought we’d come out and play a little bit better.”
The coach discussed the disappointing season from the Chiefs’ defensive line, which has only contributed 14.5 of the team’s 21 sacks through 11 games of the season. He believes the unprecedented attention given to defensive tackle Chris Jones is affecting the team’s other pass rushers.
“It’s a lot of different things,” he explained. “We’ve got to find some one-on-ones. Maybe we can call something a little bit differently. There’s a lot of different reasons for it. They tend to block us pass rush-wise a little differently, mainly because of Chris. So, we’ve got to figure out those things in the middle of the game, but we just haven’t. It hasn’t been quite where we want it yet. We’ve got a little ways to go. Hopefully it shows up this week.”
Penalties were a significant problem for the Chiefs defense on Sunday. However, one call that Spagnuolo could not explain was a far from obvious unsportsmanlike conduct flag on safety Justin Reid on an earlier Carolina two-point conversion try. The Panthers eventually settled for a one-point kick after a false start on the next snap.
“I’ve got no answer for that,” said Spagnuolo. “I’m not so sure. I don’t know that I could coach him any differently. It’s a physical sport. I’d better stop there.”
Though far from content with his unit’s performance, Spagnuolo made certain to credit what the Panthers did right while lamenting what the Chiefs did wrong. Second-year quarterback Bryce Young — striving to shed the bust label a year after being selected number one overall in the 2023 NFL Draft — had arguably the best game of his career against Kansas City.
“Listen, I’m going to give that the quarterback a lot of credit,” Spagnuolo declared. “I thought he played exceptionally well. He looked...
