Greatest Defensive Coordinator in the history of the game and this guy whines that he let the other team take off too much clock. Lol clown

one TD by the other team and some people here lose their minds LMAO

I’m still baffled on what happened to the run defense. It’s been the strength the whole year. Hopefully it was just rust.

I love the first page of this thread

Chiefs were playing a lot of two high, I think. That makes a difference.

Same thing that happened in Buffalo last year.

Next week we stopped the run cold because Lamar isn't the passing threat Josh is.

This is how you beat Lamar or Josh. Compress that pocket.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Wharton and Danna just bull rush their lineman into Stroud’s lap. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Chiefs?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Chiefs</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ChiefsKingdom?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ChiefsKingdom</a> <a href="https://t.co/fLXg6d0lWE">pic.twitter.com/fLXg6d0lWE</a></p>&mdash; Nick Jacobs (@Jacobs71) <a href="https://twitter.com/Jacobs71/status/1881019868746760321?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 19, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

I don't get it at this point.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Chatted with <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Bills?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Bills</a> guard O&#39;Cyrus Torrence about the decisive fourth and 5 play. All game, DC Steve Spagnuolo showed this particular pressure... and backed off. Typically sent heat where the Chiefs *weren&#39;t* showing it pre-snap. That&#39;s why the Bills slid their protection left.…</p>&mdash; Tyler Dunne (@TyDunne) <a href="https://twitter.com/TyDunne/status/1883957631770853683?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 27, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Spags did this.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">If you have a great QB, try to throw the ball more, not less <a href="https://t.co/rP9I81H36r">pic.twitter.com/rP9I81H36r</a></p>&mdash; Robby (@greerreNFL) <a href="https://twitter.com/greerreNFL/status/1883965404281987312?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 27, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

I'll say this.

I have a pretty high opinion of myself. I think I'm pretty ****ing good at a lot of shit. I don't have a ton of football experience, so I'm not going to be calling any games, but I think if I'd have dedicated my life to the game of football, I'd be a pretty good coordinator.

That being said there is NO WAY I could hold onto a play until the last play of the game. No ****ing way I wouldn't fire that gun in some high leverage situation.

Incredible.

Can Spags get into the Hall of Fame for being a DC?

Because he absolutely should. Oh my lord he's a demon.

if there ever is a case for that, Spags is it.

Sexy time.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Here’s a <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/StudyBall?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#StudyBall</a> look at the final play of the season for the <a href="https://twitter.com/BuffaloBills?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@BuffaloBills</a> &amp; why I was so frustrated by the lack of answers in the most critical of moments! And not just Bills but have been screaming about the proper <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/PressurePlan?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#PressurePlan</a> for teams all year - Coaches emphasize it!! <a href="https://t.co/IVDqjKoXRM">pic.twitter.com/IVDqjKoXRM</a></p>&mdash; Kurt Warner (@kurt13warner) <a href="https://twitter.com/kurt13warner/status/1883864292820500853?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 27, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Another awesome piece from The Athletic. Click and support if you're a subscriber.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/609...agnuolo-blitz/


Chiefs’ all-out blitz with Super Bowl berth on the line is defensive play call of the year
KANSAS CITY, MO - JANUARY 26: Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen (17) is pressured by Kansas City Chiefs cornerback Trent McDuffie (22) o0n fourth down late in the fourth quarter of the AFC Championship game between the Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs on January 26, 2025 at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, MO. (Photo by Scott Winters/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
By Zak Keefer
Jan 27, 2025
221

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Most inside the Kansas City huddle knew the call before it came in.

“I had an intuition,” defensive end George Karlaftis admitted later. “And I wasn’t the only one.”

Cornerback Trent McDuffie heard it and grinned, then darted to the left side of the field and eagerly awaited the snap. He knew the stakes. He knew the assignment. He’d been waiting all game for the chance to chase down Josh Allen. Here it was.

“I wanted that blitz,” McDuffie would say later, revisiting the pivotal play in Sunday’s AFC Championship Game.

Two minutes remained. The Chiefs led the Bills by three, 32-29, and the Buffalo offense faced a fourth-and-5 from its own 47-yard line. A conversion would keep the Bills’ chances alive; a stop would all but secure the Chiefs’ third straight trip to the Super Bowl. The latest instant classic in the AFC’s best running rivalry rested on one play. McDuffie’s number had been called.

“I looked at Trent and gave him those eyes,” safety Jaden Hicks said. “It was like, time to go.”

Brett Veach watched intently from the owner’s suite at Arrowhead Stadium, worried that something he’d half-jokingly mentioned to his family earlier in the afternoon — “first team to 35 wins” — was about to come true.

“God, I hope I’m not right,” the Chiefs general manager told himself.

Patrick Mahomes stood on the sideline, teeming with angst. “I’m always nervous when the football is not in my hand,” the quarterback admitted.

Owner Clark Hunt was less worried.

“I trust in Spags,” he’d say later, smiling.

Spags. Defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo. One of the best in league history. “A wizard,” nose tackle Mike Pennel later called him. In his team’s defining moment of the season — up to this point at least — Spagnuolo dialed up a devastating play call, one he hadn’t used all game, overloading the right side of the Bills’ line with pressure and sending his best cornerback, McDuffie, on an all-out blitz.

Risky? Sure. Some of Spags’ own players admitted as much. Bring that type of heat against a quarterback like Allen and you’re gambling that he’s not going to turn it into the kind of chunk play that sinks your season.

Allen does that kind of thing as well as any quarterback in football. The Chiefs have learned this the hard way. They watched Allen bolt from the pocket on a game-clinching touchdown run in the fourth quarter of the Bills’ Week 11 win — Kansas City’s only real loss of the regular season.

“But that’s who Spags is,” Chiefs safety Bryan Cook said. “Life is about risk. The real question is: Are you confident in the risk you’re taking?”

Spags was. He always is.

“I just figured they do something to beat man (coverage),” Spagnuolo said after the Chiefs’ 32-29 victory clinched their spot in Super Bowl LIX. “If I’m going to have somebody coming, (McDuffie) is a good guy to have.”

The Bills didn’t see it coming. Neither did Tony Romo. Before the snap, the CBS color commentator told play-by-play announcer Jim Nantz, “(Allen) is going to have time here.”

The payoff came quickly and decisively: Allen was hurried from the pocket almost instantly. First it was safety Justin Reid, untouched. Then it was McDuffie, also untouched. Finally it was Karlaftis, who forced the Bills quarterback to heave a prayer high into the Kansas City sky, then did his best to avoid falling on Allen “to not get a dumbass penalty,” Karlaftis later said.

Spagnuolo had gotten three Chiefs defenders into the Bills’ backfield in under two seconds and forced Allen into a borderline Hail Mary with a Super Bowl berth on the line. It was the defensive play call of the year.

“(Spagnuolo) waited all game to send the most exotic pressure,” Romo told Nantz.

Still, the Bills had a shot. Allen’s heave hung in the air for several seconds.

Hicks lost it in the lights. “I’m like, ‘Holy s—,'” he said. “My heart dropped for a second.”

McDuffie gazed back. “Everything was in slow motion,” he remembered.

All defensive tackle Chris Jones could think about was ending it. “I’m tired,” he admitted feeling. “Get us off the field!”

Bills tight end Dalton Kincaid had a shot at securing the ball, but it bounced off his hands. Five plays later, the celebration was on at Arrowhead.

After it was over, and while the confetti rained down — a staggering fifth trip to the Super Bowl the Chiefs had clinched in the past six years — McDuffie sat on the bench next to Cook and soaked it all in. Tears rolled down his cheeks. He knows this isn’t normal. He knows this isn’t how the NFL works. Three years into his career, the 2022 first-round draft pick has still never lost a playoff game. All he knows are Super Bowls.

“This is something you’re probably not gonna see again,” McDuffie said. “You’re not going to be able to go back-to-back-to-back.”

As for the growing sense of Chiefs fatigue, he hears it. It comes with the territory.

Growing up, McDuffie’s older brother Tyler was a New England Patriots fan, the league’s last dynasty before the Chiefs’ reign began. “I used to hate the Patriots,” McDuffie said. “So being in that position to be the ones everyone’s hating? It’s a great feeling.”

He smiled. Cigar smoke hung in the air while his teammates passed around the Lamar Hunt Trophy. The music thumped. Tickets to New Orleans had been punched.

One more win and the Chiefs will bask in a feeling no team in history has ever experienced.

Probably repeating myself, but Spags is the GOAT DC. GREATEST. ALL-TIME.

I ****ing love this team.

https://assets.viralstyle.com/campai...ront-large.jpg

Bought that shirt last year. Will break it out for the SB.

A few Bills fans on twobills want to hire Spags at Head Coach. LMAO

Probably still Belichick. His defense played a major role in winning 8 rings. But Spags is right up there in the conversation for #2, maybe in the #2 spot by himself. Hopefully the Hall of Fame will eventually give Spags proper recognition for his greatness.

Bill might have the numbers, but I'll take Spags every day and twice on Sunday.

Spags doesn't want to be the Mayor of Munchkin Land.

This is a tweet from Tyler Dunne, ex Buffalo News journalist.

The guy is a ****ing legend.

Found this YouTube channel about a year ago, former NFL O-Lineman breaking down some of the protections and stuff in the trenches my peanut brain doesn't fully understand. This has been a great watch so far.

Some highlights so far
3:45 Chris Jones gets pretty close, and Josh makes a horrible decision that he should've paid for.
7:38 Justin Reid gets a free rush on Josh, confusion in protection by the Bills after they go to an empty backfield.
11:09 Chiefs D-Line wins the rep so hard. Total chaos in the backfield.
15:02 3rd & 10 at the end of the game, we zero blitz, Josh makes the perfect read, Karlaftis saves this from being 30+ yards or a TD. Amari Cooper loses his footing on the catch and loses his ability to make a good first step and ultimately loses his ability to break this for a ton of yards.
17:40 4th & 5 end of the game. Pretty interesting stuff. 4 receivers to the left vs 3 DBs, the right side of the field is totally overloaded. Conventional wisdom I guess would say to slide protection to the right where you have numbers, and you should be fine. But as we've heard from the Bills O-Lineman, they truly felt like the pressure would come from the left because Spags had been sending pressure opposite from where it looks like it would be coming from all game long. Josh isn't even looking to the right after the ball is snapped, he's completely fooled.
EDIT: After rewatching it a 3rd time, Chris Jones is on that left side. Was that the big reason they slid protection left, to prevent CJ from being able to make the game winning play? Who knows.

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The Clint Eastwood of defensive coordinators.

https://media.tenor.com/xYBAmoQj8_EA...llars-more.gif

the beginning of this thread is hilarious

The regular season game was a sandbox for this guy. Just trying random vanilla shit to figure his opponent out.

Amazing coach

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Spags&#39; shining moment ✨<br><br>His disguised blitz call led to a 4th down stop <a href="https://twitter.com/Chiefs?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Chiefs</a> fans will never forget<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NFLTurningPoint?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NFLTurningPoint</a> on ESPN+ with <a href="https://twitter.com/LRiddickESPN?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@LRiddickESPN</a> <a href="https://t.co/Ja9tqmpPYW">pic.twitter.com/Ja9tqmpPYW</a></p>&mdash; NFL Films (@NFLFilms) <a href="https://twitter.com/NFLFilms/status/1885066349816189314?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 30, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Hilarious takes as usual!

I really wonder how Spags is going to dial up the defense for Barkley?

We've been "good" against the run most of the year but had a few games where we were "ehhh".

We haven't faced a back like Barkley this year, but outside of him there's nothing about the Eagles that scares me.

It doesn't matter.

It will be like almost every postseason game with Spags.

Give up 100-150 yards rushing and still win.

Because the opponent couldn't convert enough third downs.

The Chiefs defend the pass and stop the quick score in the postseason.

AJ brown scary.

I like McDuffie on him all day. Not worried about him.

Andy Reid is the GOAT organization building coach


Reid was Veach's boss since Veach was in his 20s.

He has a knack for cultivating people.

Can't embed for copyright reasons, but this is a great video:

Why the Chiefs Defensive Scheme is GENIUS.

Breakdown of every blitz Spags called in the AFCCG
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