1 hour ago
1
Nate TaylorSep 27, 2025, 06:00 AM ET
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Steve Spagnuolo knows how good an unexpected laugh can be for his players.
Throughout last season, the Kansas City Chiefs' longtime defensive coordinator would, on occasion, have Louie Addazio, the unit's quality control assistant, put together a highlight package of old clips of Chiefs position coaches' playing days -- each one a treat for the players to watch. Players laughed when they saw grainy footage of defensive line coach Joe Cullen as a nose tackle or linebackers coach Brendan Daly as a tight end.
One of the most memorable moments, linebacker Leo Chenal said, was when it was time for Addazio to showcase Spagnuolo's film.
"It's in black and white," Chenal said, smiling.
Spagnuolo was a two-year starter at wide receiver at Springfield College in Massachusetts. But those details are not what surprised the players the most. Most shocking for Chiefs defenders -- including pass rusher Chris Jones, safety Bryan Cook and linebacker Nick Bolton -- was what position Spagnuolo played before college.
"They wouldn't look at me and say, 'He was a quarterback,'" Spagnuolo said, laughing.
Yes, Spagnuolo -- one of the NFL's greatest defensive minds, a strategist known for his complex blitzes and the lone coordinator in history to have four Super Bowl rings (including titles with two different franchises) -- was once a high school quarterback.
Sometimes, often in passing when he's just talking ball with his players, Spagnuolo will mention to them he was a pretty good quarterback, too. Two years ago, Chiefs cornerback Trent McDuffie had that exact experience.
"I thought he was a running back because I played running back [in high school]," McDuffie said of Spagnuolo, 65. "He said quarterback and I was like, 'Ah snap ... OK, Spags! ... The leader of the team?!'
"It makes sense, just how smart he is and how much he understands offenses. When he said that, I was like, 'Ah, I see.' It was pretty cool to learn about that."
Before he became a coach, Spagnuolo's introduction to the sport -- and indoctrination into coaching -- was through the sport's most important position. His unexpected beginnings calling signals in Grafton, Massachusetts, almost 50 years ago, he says, helped in his pursuit of always trying to outwit the NFL's best quarterbacks -- a methodology he has used to help the Chiefs win three Super Bowls in a five-year span, and one he'll use when Kansas City face the Baltimore Ravens and star QB Lamar Jackson on Sunday (4:25 p.m. ET on CBS).
"I don't want to bore them with the details," Spagnuolo said of telling his players about his QB days. "It was tremendously helpful when I went over to the defensive side of the ball to have a little bit of an understanding of what was going on."
AS A FRESHMAN at Grafton High in 1974, Spagnuolo knew he wanted to be a multisport athlete. He became a strong second baseman for a state championship baseball team, and he was an aggressive center for the hockey team. During his sophomore year, it became clear to him that his favorite sport was football.
The man who cultivated Spagnuolo's interest was Richard Egsegian, a geometry teacher who coached Grafton's football team for 32 years.
"Any quarterback on any team always has a special relationship with the head coach," Spagnuolo said. "You have to have that."
Egsegian's small office in the school gymnasium was where Spagnuolo learned about the intricacies of various offensive systems. Egsegian had books on Oklahoma's Split-T offense, the wishbone, the Houston Veer under coach Bill Yeoman and the I-formation from coach John McKay.
"I must've been headed toward coaching because all I was reading were these coaching books," Spagnuolo said. "The books were really cool. My coach was really into option football, and then they put it in. I think the coaches figured out I wasn't going to be a big, tall, strapping and throwing quarterback.
"It worked out pretty good for me."
Spagnuolo's turn as the starter began as a junior in 1976. He spent the summer learning and perfecting all of the techniques a quarterback needs to operate the wishbone, practicing his pitch over and over.
"I laugh every time when [someone] says I was a high school quarterback because it's been so long ago," Spagnuolo said. "In today's football, to call what I ran 'quarterback' doesn't even sound right because we only threw the ball like eight to 10 times.
"[Chiefs quarterback] Patrick [Mahomes] throws 1,000 balls a day. This is what I was doing all summer long: pitching it to nobody. I was going up and down the field pitching it to air."
Wearing No. 17, Spagnuolo led Grafton to one of its most successful stretches in Egsegian's tenure. Grafton won 18 of its 21 games played with Spagnuolo as the starter. In 1976, he led Grafton to the Southern Worcester County League championship and a spot in the Division III state title game. Spagnuolo often made the right decision on whether to keep the ball or pitch it to star halfback Rich Welsh.
One of Spagnuolo's best games as a quarterback was Nov. 24, 1977, the regular-season finale of his senior year against West Boylston. Spagnuolo guided Grafton to a 30-7 victory, finishing with two touchdown passes.
Although Grafton lacked great speed, the team was successful on offense in part, Spagnuolo said, because he mastered Egsegian's playbook. The two would have lengthy discussions on how Spagnuolo could manipulate the defensive end on plays to the perimeter.
"He was just a tremendous guy, high character, and he was like a father figure to me," Spagnuolo said. "At that time, my parents were divorced, so I was probably searching for that. When you gravitate towards coaches, teachers, mentors, it kind of just led me down that road."
ONE QUESTION CHANGED Spagnuolo's career.
In 1983, Spagnuolo thought he was headed toward a career as an offensive position coach -- handling receivers or tight ends for some NFL team. After he spent a year as an intern for Washington in the NFL, Spagnuolo joined Lafayette College in Pennsylvania as a receivers and tight ends assistant under coach Bill Russo. But Hank Hughes, the team's previous defensive line coach, accepted a job to be the linebackers coach at James Madison. So Russo thought of Spagnuolo, asking him if he wanted to coach the Leopards' D-line.
"I jumped at the chance," Spagnuolo said. "I coached there for three years, and I just never ended up back on the offensive side of the ball. I don't know what made [Russo] think I would be able to coach the D-line, but I studied. I went around the country trying to visit with D-line coaches."
Three years at Lafayette led to coaching defensive backs at the University of Connecticut for five years. For another five years, from 1993 to 1997, Spagnuolo taught defensive backs at Maine, Rutgers and Bowling Green. Spagnuolo spent time in 1998 teaching linebackers with the Frankfurt Galaxy in Europe before Andy Reid hired him in 1999 to join his Philadelphia Eagles staff as a defensive quality control coach. Along with Reid, the man Spagnuolo admired most was Jim Johnson, then the savvy, aggressive defensive coordinator.
"I tell these young [coaches] now that any time you can get on the other side of the ball, it's a good thing," Spagnuolo said.
Through Johnson, Spagnuolo inherited a philosophical belief: The quarterback must never feel comfortable. By learning to design his defense to attack the opposing signal-caller with blitzes and simulated pressures, the goal was to make the quarterback do additional work: Could he -- whether it be a rookie or veteran -- know where the weakness was in his pass protection before the ball was snapped?
Such tactics have made Spagnuolo one of the most decorated coaches in NFL history. With the New York Giants in 2007 -- his first season as an NFL DC -- he was the lone coordinator to get the best of quarterback Tom Brady and the New England Patriots, preventing them from winning Super Bowl XLII and finishing undefeated.
Since joining the Chiefs in 2019, Spagnuolo's unit has followed a simple formula: wait for Kansas City to get a lead and begin controlling the tempo, then start attacking the opposing quarterback.
"It unleashes Spags to be able to do what he wants to do," Mahomes said. "You always see it. He's a great finisher, a great closer."
Mahomes said he has spent many hours in meetings with Spagnuolo throughout his career -- the two going over different ideas. When Spagnuolo wants to try a new trick, or add a wrinkle to his scheme, he'll go over the strategy with Mahomes to get the quarterback's perspective.
Those sorts of talks, which he began with quarterback Sam Bradford when he was head coach of the Rams in 2010, often make Spagnuolo remember his conversations with Egsegian. In one of his final conversations with his former high school coach, who died of cancer on Oct. 28, 2010, Spagnuolo was able to share just how much of an impact Egsegian made on his career.
"I told him, 'You know, Coach, I'm on the other end of the head coach-quarterback relationship,'" Spagnuolo said. "I said to him, 'Way back when, I was the young guy, and you were that person. Now, I'm trying to do the same thing.'
"I thought it was kind of cool."
SPAGNUOLO LOVES TO stand behind the center spot during install periods at practices. From his view as the metaphorical quarterback, Spagnuolo can be in front of the defense, without an offensive line, and direct his defense to see how his unit's plays look against certain formations from the scout team offense.
"It brings me back to my youth," Spagnuolo said. "I do like to see it that way and say, 'No, that's not going to look right.'"
Part of what Spagnuolo wants to see from that vantage point is how his players communicate with one another, and how they adjust their assignments depending on what they could see from the offense.
In a walk-through, Spagnuolo can snap the ball as the quarterback and see if the disguised coverage from the secondary is well executed -- and not revealed too soon. He also looks to see the footwork of whichever defender is blitzing, making sure that player doesn't tip off the quarterback on where the pressure might be coming from.
"Honestly, it just adds to his knowledge of everything from a defensive perspective," McDuffie said. "When you know he's seen it and been in that position and knows what a quarterback looks at, it just adds to the trust you have in him. You know he knows what he's talking about."
Understanding defense from the quarterback's point of view, Spagnuolo's most outrageous blitz last season helped close one of the biggest games of the year. The Chiefs were protecting a three-point lead late on a pivotal fourth-and-5 in the AFC Championship Game against the Buffalo Bills. Spagnuolo sent McDuffie on a blitz from the perimeter that created immediate pressure on Bills quarterback Josh Allen, who was forced into rushing his deep pass, which fell incomplete. The Chiefs held on to win 32-29.
"He does a great job of having that Rolodex of calls," Chenal said of Spagnuolo. "He's able to continually make little adjustments game to game.
"If I didn't know anything else, just the way he talks and speaks to people, the way he talks about schemes, that alone gives us trust in him. It's also nice knowing that he backs it up a lot in his previous success with previous teams."
In training camp this year, Spagnuolo spent one-on-one time with his defensive ends, showing them where and how they should drop into zone coverage from their spot along the line of scrimmage to quickly close a throwing lane for the quarterback.
On some occasions -- to surprise and get a laugh out of his players -- Spagnuolo will snap the ball as the quarterback during an installation period and start running one of his old-school wishbone plays.
"He'll go, 'All right, you lost contain. Come on, dude!'" Chenal said, smiling.
Many of the Chiefs have openly wondered what it would've been like in 1977 to try to tackle Spagnuolo in the open field. Chenal has a theory.
"He was like Kyler Murray, probably," Chenal said of Spagnuolo. "I know he's lowering that shoulder and has a nasty stiff-arm. He might've had some mean jukes, too."
