Former Rams coach could get second chance that nobody would have predicted

Steve Spagnuolo was one of the few head coaches in NFL history to be permitted to lose 14 or more games twice in his career, and he did so for three years with the St. Louis Rams. Four Super Bowl titles are now added to Spagnuolo’s résumé, following his five years of stardom as the defensive coordinator for the Kansas City Chiefs.

Due to clubs’ reluctance to name Spagnuolo head coach again, he has been dubbed the NFL’s most valuable coordinator; yet, given that he is the most talked-about coach heading into another Super Bowl, I’m not sure how accurate that statement is.

Although Spagnuolo was a flawed head coach, he managed to persuade one league owner despite all odds.

Spagnuolo began his career as a caching agent in 1981 as a 22-year-old graduate assistant at UMass. He interned with the Washington Redskins in 1983, but he did not return to the NFL until 1999, when Andy Reid hired him to coach defensive quality control for the Eagles.

With a roster that included coaches like Leslie Frazier, Brad Childress, Ron Rivera, John Harbaugh, Sean McDermott, and David Culley, Spags would win four NFC Championships and one Super Bowl with Philadelphia. He was brought on by Tom Coughlin as the Giants defensive coordinator in 2007, and the “NASCAR package” inspired pass rushers like Justin Tuck and Osi Umenyiora to record more than ten sacks apiece.

The world was taken aback when the Giants upset the unbeaten Patriots.The Rams brought in Spagnuolo to replace Scott Linehan following a 2-14 season in which Jim Haslett led the team to a 2-10 record in the final 12 games after leading New York to a top-5 defense in 2008. Even though St. Louis managed to perform worse under Spagnuolo in 2009—going 1–15—the defense improved in his second season, going from bottom–2 to top–12, and St. Louis finished 7-9.

Regretfully, the Rams had the NFL’s worst offense by a large margin in 2011 when Josh McDaniels was their offensive coordinator, and they ended 2-14. In order to ensure another seven or eight seasons, Spags was let to finish the season but was fired and Jeff Fisher took his position.

A head coach should be executed if they go 10-38, but as it standsHe played for the Giants as defensive coordinator for four seasons after spending one with Sean Payton in 2012, two with Harbaugh on the Ravens, and four more with the Giants. In 2016, the team gave up the second fewest points in the NFL.

After a year-long absence from the league in 2018, a well-known figure returned to the Chiefs when they needed someone to take over Bob Sutton’s defense: Andy Reid invited Spagnuolo to rejoin the team in 2019. Since then, the Chiefs have won three Super Bowls, four AFC titles, and made it to the AFC Championship game in each of his five years as DC. Without Steve, there would be no possibility for the Chiefs to win their third Super Bowl title in 2023 with Reid and Patrick Mahomes.