The Kansas City Chiefs' Super Bowl LVIII win over the San Francisco 49ers saw the offense come alive down the stretch, but the defense also played a huge role.
Defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo led one of the NFL's most creative groups all season long, with those efforts paying off in the big game. Kansas City held San Francisco to 22 points in five quarters of play, surrendering just two touchdowns on the evening and helping fuel the team's comeback. When things got tough late in the game, the Chiefs stepped up.
After the 49ers let the clock run down to the two-minute warning in the fourth quarter, Kansas City was forced to change its pre-snap call on third-and-five. Spagnuolo switched to a fourth-down play coming out of the break. Cornerback Trent McDuffie got a free pressure on Brock Purdy that ultimately forced a long field goal, although he wasn't the only critical element of that equation.
Speaking to Peter Schrager on his The Season podcast this week, Spagnuolo explained why the trust between him and linebacker Nick Bolton also influenced the decision.
"We made a particular call and then when it went to the two-minute warning — of course with the Super Bowl, with these timeouts, big break, huge break — that's when the wheels go like this (rotating motion)," Spagnuolo said. "It was at that moment you look up and go, 'OK, this is a fourth-down play. This is not a third-and-four or five or whatever it was. This is critical. I had a thought, I looked at my list and I said, 'I need to ask Nick about this.' This is the trust I have in Nick Bolton.
"So Nick's on the field — he can't talk to me — but I'm staring right at him. I clicked the button and I said, 'Nick, what do you think about this?' All I wanted to do was see his reaction and he just started [going] yes, yes, yes and did the signal. He was all-in. I knew when he was all-in that we should change it to that so we change personnel and put a different call in. It was a fourth-down call, or what he had on a fourth-down list, it was for the critical situation."
Spagnuolo credits McDuffie, Bolton, rookie safety Chamarri Conner, veteran safety Deon Bush and others for their contributions. With so many defensive backs on the field at once, the veteran coordinator knew he was asking a lot of each player. They responded with "perfect execution," stalling out a San Francisco drive that gave the Chiefs the ball back with plenty of time to go down the field and tie the game. That's exactly what they did; the rest is history.
Now over two decades into his NFL coaching career, Spagnuolo is the first coordinator to win four championships. In 2023-24, his side of the ball ranked among the best in the league in many important statistics. Despite some offensive struggles all year long, the defense assisted the Chiefs along their path to a second Super Bowl win in a row. Players like McDuffie, Bolton and Conner are on rookie deals and project to find ways to improve ahead of next season. While Kansas City has decisions to make regarding L'Jarius Sneed and Chris Jones, having Spagnuolo on a new extension ensures that the mastermind will be around the next time a clutch stop needs to be drawn up.
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