Meeting with reporters on Thursday, the Kansas City Chiefs\u2019 defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo fielded quite a few questions about the team\u2019s season-opening 27-21 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers in S\u00e3o Paulo, Brazil last Friday.<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t mince any words \u2014 even when talking about his own errors in the game.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI just didn\u2019t feel like I had one of my better games,\u201d he admitted. \u201cUsually when I\u2019m making a mistake, it\u2019s a fairly critical one because I feel like I should have called something else \u2014 but it begins with me. If I sit there and look in the mirror \u2014 and I\u2019ve got three or four plays \u2014 and I go, \u2018No, I shouldn\u2019t have done that,\u2018 that could be the difference in the game. So I want to make sure that doesn\u2019t happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spagnuolo also confirmed what has widely been suspected: the Chiefs expected that early on, the Chargers would establish the run \u2014 and were caught off guard when Los Angeles opened the game by going to the air.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo their credit,\u201d acknowledged the coordinator, \u201cthey kind of shifted gears right from the beginning. Maybe it threw us off a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spagnuolo recognized that the defense could have adjusted to this change more quickly \u2014 but was happy with how the team eventually responded.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI thought we did a nice job coming out of the locker room in the second half,\u201d he remarked. \u201c[When] we needed a three-and-out, we got that\u2026 but there weren\u2019t enough good plays.\u201d<\/p>\n
While some mistakes from the game have been highlighted \u2014 like Chris Jones\u2019 loss of containment late in the fourth quarter that allowed Los Angeles quarterback Justin Herbert to make a game-sealing first down \u2014 Spagnuolo believes there was plenty of blame to go around.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all felt like everybody took a turn making a mistake \u2014 myself included,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s about four or five calls I would like to have back. And I think every player \u2014 to a man \u2014 said the same thing. So if we can eliminate those, we\u2019ll be better off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spagnuolo also wanted to credit Herbert for his play in the matchup.<\/p>\n
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\u201cHe beat us with his arm and with his feet,\u201d he noted, \u201cand because of that, I think they came out as a winner.\u201d<\/p>\n
But there was more to it than that. Offensive players always have the advantage \u2014 simply because they know what\u2019s coming. On Monday, Los Angeles was able to extend that offensive edge.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, there\u2019s an element of this in today\u2019s football,\u201d explained the coordinator, \u201cwhere it doesn\u2019t matter what you call \u2014 [because] they have a better play called. They had a few of those \u2014 and they had them early. It gave chunk yardage \u2014 which we don\u2019t want. We\u2019ve got to find ways to eliminate those.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spagnuolo remains focused on improving his unit\u2019s pass rush and coverage, which must work together to succeed.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t cover forever,\u201d he reminded his listeners. \u201cWe just need a little [pressure] to make the quarterback throw a little bit quicker \u2014 and cover a little tighter.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Meeting with reporters on Thursday, the Kansas City Chiefs\u2019 defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo fielded quite a few questions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2064],"tags":[241,2025,7,1159,110,1014,262,2444,2443,6,2890],"class_list":{"0":"post-362287","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-chargers","8":"tag-chargers","9":"tag-chris-jones","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-justin-herbert","12":"tag-kansas-city-chiefs","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-los-angeles-chargers","15":"tag-losangeles","16":"tag-losangeleschargers","17":"tag-nfl","18":"tag-steve-spagnuolo"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115191699482907346","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}