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During a postgame meeting, (Steve Spagnuolo) said he didn’t feel like he’d coached his best game.
“It begins with me,” Spagnuolo said Thursday in an interview with reporters. “If I sit there and critique and look in the mirror, I’ve got three or four plays and I go, ‘Nah, I shouldn’t have done that,’ that could be the difference in the game. So I, myself, want to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”
“They got us on the eyes,” Cornerback Trent McDuffie said. “That just goes back to fundamentals. I think that first week, first game, guys were out there just passionate. In a new country, playing in Brazil, the energy was up. We just lost a little focus.”
The Chiefs hoped to have McDuffie play more slot corner this season following the offseason addition of free agent Kristian Fulton. But after sitting out most of training camp with a knee injury, Fulton played just 24 percent of the team’s defensive snaps in Game 1.
Spagnuolo confirmed Thursday that Fulton’s knowledge of the defense was holding him back more than his injury.
“He’s behind a lot in some of the things we do,” Spagnuolo said, “and the way we do it.”
The Chiefs have room for growth on all levels of their coverage. They finished Week 1 with Pro Football Focus’ third-worst coverage grade, with linebacker Nick Bolton and safety Jaden Hicks ranking among the worst at their positions.
McDuffie, meanwhile, said he’s seen good signs in practice this week from the defense after a “messy” first game.
“I think that’s the best way to move forward is take accountability for what you did — your mess-ups,” McDuffie said. “We see it. We understand it. And then move forward and make sure that we continue to grow each and every day.”
12 comments
It’s the offense that needs to apologize starting with why the fuck didn’t they get a legitimate RB
I don’t think that’s the guys on the fields fault 😭
Honestly I really think we can beat the eagles if we lock in on defense. I’m still not scared
The entire defense looked terrible on pass plays. No rush, No coverage. Not sure that’s something you fix in 1 week, especially when the Eagles have more talent than the Chargers at every position except QB.
Optimistic me believes we find a way to stay close and claw out a close win. Realist me worries Andy comes out with the most conservative scripted plays possible and we’re down 2 scores again early 2nd quarter and the Eagles control the game and never feel pressured.
I think we’ve got a good team, but it might take a few more weeks to get it going.
I mean…we seen what’s going on…
It’ll suck until week 5 or 6, always does. Probably going to take some early L’s and roll the latter part of the season. Need Rashee and Worthy healthy and ready to go by week 6.
I’d prefer straight acknowledgement that they WILL be better and not so much believing they will be. I don’t love the word choice.
It starts with having Chris Jones at DT and not lining up at DE against their best lineman.
Just glad to see Bolton called out. He took the bait and was out of position on almost every route concept. Graded out as 90th out of 100 LBs in coverage, so I’m not the only one who saw it that way. He’s our number one liability at the moment, we need him to turn it around big-time or teams will keep exploiting him.
1. Spags defenses have started slow in previous seasons. ‘23 and ‘24 are notable for them *not* starting slow.
2. Just like it was silly for people to go nuts over the 1st quarter of the 3rd preseason game, people shouldn’t go nuts over a poor performance from the defense from a single game.
If the defense plays poorly again or the team comes out flat again, I would start to be concerned.
But even if we have another poor performance… we have had worst stretches before, even with Mahomes, and still made the AFCCG or better. So not a reason to panic.
This is the most concerned I’ve been about this team perhaps for the entire Mahomes era. At least on 18-22 the offense could pick up the defense when needed. 23-24 the defense could pick up the offense. But both sides looked so awful last week, which itself was carried over from the Super Bowl, that I don’t know if one side will be able to consistently pick up the other.
I think the most disheartening thing is that we’ve heard all about “gotta being back the deep pass” “gotta open up the offense”, etc. and we have hardly seen any of that. Sure they hit the deep pass to Thornton but it was just one play. And what makes it frustrating is the offense feels like it’s stagnated for 3 years now. They run the same routes, the same concepts, the same sets, etc. Teams never look surprised anymore and any good thing that happens is usually because Mahomes is Mahomes.
Remember in 2018-2022 when they used to run crazy screens all the time? What happened to those? Kareem Hunt was deadly. Damian Williams made a bunch of them work. Jerrick McKinnon had 9 receiving TDs. They just don’t run screens anymore. Defense don’t respect the run game and they don’t respect the screen and they just hang back and the Chiefs never make them pay. I would love to blame Nagy and will for a portion but this is Andy’s offense and always has been. Where is stuff like “Rose Bowl Right parade”? And because of the stagnation the team doesn’t look like it’s having fun anymore. And this isn’t just the reaction from last week, it’s from 23-24 and last week.
Anyway, sorry for the rant. There is plenty of time to get it fixed and they are more than capable. And I don’t think they will have a losing record or anything but if they don’t do some serious self-scouting and evaluation then it could be a 10 win season where they barely make the playoffs and who knows what they would do once they make it.
Pretty low bar, so there should be hope of some improvement.