It's a question as old as the NFL itself: "Can an average, untrained person person gain just one yard of offense in a game of NFL football?"
That question was posed to Kansas City Chiefs defensive coordinator and former NFL head coach Steve Spagnuolo on the latest episode of the New Heights Show this week. Spagnuolo ranks among the best defensive coaches of this generation, winning four Super Bowls as a defensive coach, while more than half of his teams have been a top-10 unit.
But when the question went his way, he needed to take a good, long moment to really ponder it. After thinking about it for a while, this was his response:
"Nah, I don't think they could," he said, drawing a laugh from show hosts Travis and Jason Kelce.
We had to get a defensive coordinator’s take on this classic debate pic.twitter.com/SWJ05td7UC
— New Heights (@newheightshow) June 12, 2025
Spagnuolo elaborated, explaining that NFL defensive players are too skilled and too big to let that happen.
"Our guys are too good, too big, too fast, too strong. I mean, come on," he said.
The conversation then moved to their passion for the old TV show Pros vs. Joes and how the Kelces might be able to bring a show like that back while settling other classic sports arguments.
But it's easy to understand why Spagnuolo is so confident that an average person wouldn't be able to get a single yard. The amount of different skills that go in to even a single NFL play can be hard to describe.
Think about how many veteran NFL players often struggle with seemingly basic things like catching a ball, making a blocking assignment or finding a hole in a defense.
Now apply that to an average person who has only ever seen that on television and lacks both the knowledge of how to identify those key moments and the ability to make something happen.
Even some of the best offensive lines in NFL history don't produce yards on every play. Opening up a hole so big that a normal person can get through it without getting annihilated by a defensive player sounds downright impossible.
That said, the math might change if the Tush Push is involved...
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