Steve Spagnuolo’s blitz could be the Chiefs’ key to beating the Bills

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Every year, at the end of training camp, Patrick Mahomes breathes a sigh of relief that he and the rest of the Kansas City Chiefs’ offensive starters won’t have to practice for another year against the pressure-based defensive arrangements by coordinator Steve Spagnuolo.

“Everything looks so similar,” Mahomes said of the pre-snap that the Chiefs provide on defense. “But then he has so many different kinds of coverages and blitzes and different things that he can do, and then you can never get a feel for what he’s going to call because he’s just throwing random coverages and things like that every only series, it seems. It is difficult to prepare for.

“It prepares me for the season because I have that mastermind that I go toward all training camp.”

Spagnuolo has had positive results in many of his 12 seasons as an NFL defensive coordinator. He joined the Chiefs in 2019, and in his first five seasons, Kansas City has won the Super Bowl three times, including in each of the last two years.

Rarely has the fury of a Spagnuolo defense been as evident as it was in last week’s divisional round playoff win over the Houston Texans. The Chiefs sacked quarterback CJ Stroud eight times. Strudo was sacked five times in the fourth quarter alone as the Chiefs at one point blitzed him on seven consecutive pass attempts.

Chiefs coach Andy Reid knows what it’s like to call plays against Spagnuolo — back to before they arrived in Kansas City. For Reid, Spagnuolo’s greatest talent is not necessarily the creativity of his blitzes, but his touch for the right situation to call them or not to call them.

“He does a heck of a job knowing when to use the different blitzes, and that’s half the battle,” Reid said. “It’s not how much you flash. It’s just how you use the flashes and when you use them so he has a good feel for it.

“He gives you a lot of different looks (and), he’s tough to go against with the different combinations he has. He does a job with it.”

The Chiefs put the Texans’ game on hold in the fourth quarter in a four-play defensive sequence. Trailing 20-12, the Texans had a first down at the Kansas City 40. Spagnuolo ordered a blitz on the next four plays with Stroud throwing incomplete passes on the first three. Defensive end George Karlaftis sacked Stroud on fourth down. The Texans didn’t take another snap outside their 11 until late in the game after the Chiefs had kicked a field goal to take a 23-12 lead.

Spagnuolo said more goes into a decision to blitz or not than downs, distance, time left in the game and the score.

“Probably a little bit more of a feel than anything else,” Spagnuolo said. “I know the guys enjoy that part of it. They like to be aggressive. I mean, every (defensive back) and every linebacker will tell you they want to blitz. You can’t do it every down, and there may have been some in there earlier, if I go back, it didn’t quite work out the way we wanted. Fortunately for us, in that part of the game, the guys executed it exactly as we had practiced it and they ended up being positive plays for us. ”

The challenge for Spagnuolo and the Chiefs will be greater in Sunday’s AFC Championship Game (6:30 p.m. ET, CBS) against the Buffalo Bills. Bills quarterback Josh Allen was sacked 14 times during the 17-game regular season and three times in two playoff games.

The Chiefs failed to sack Allen in Week 11, a 30-21 Bills victory. This week, the Chiefs have prioritized getting Allen and the Bills off the field on third downs better than they did in Week 11, when Buffalo converted nine times in 15 attempts.

Much of that has to do with a strong, but disciplined, pass rush against Allen.

“We know they’re going to go for it on fourth down in certain situations,” Spagnuolo said. “So we want to get them to the point where we get them on the longer third downs. But that’s easier said than done with this football team. When they’re in the manageable third downs from their standpoint, it becomes really challenging because of quarterback.”

The pass rush improved throughout the season. They had 21 sacks in the first 11 games of the season, a stretch that ended after the Chiefs played the Bills.

From that point, the Chiefs had 26 sacks in seven games, including the eight against the Texans. That improvement, plus Spagnuolo’s touch to dial up the heat at the right time, has the Chiefs thinking they can rush Allen more effectively than they did last time.

“(Spagnuolo) has been there and done that,” Karlaftis said.” He has had all this experience and he knows what to call in critical situations, but also on top of that we also know what he thinks about calling It has been drilled so much in practice and we have gone over it so many times. He’s open and honest and it’s like, ‘Look, this is what I’m thinking,’ and stuff like that.

“When it comes to game time, you’re just free. You just go out and perform to the best of your ability.”