Chiefs DC Steve Spagnuolo on lessons learned after falling behind vs. Raiders
The Kansas City Chiefs defense had a scare to begin Week Twelve’s victory over the Las Vegas Raiders, falling behind 14-0 in the first half. The resurgent offense quickly closed the deficit as defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo’s unit rebounded to hold their AFC West rivals to a field goal the rest of the game.
Following Las Vegas running back Josh Jacob’s touchdown run, the Chiefs defense made a concerted effort to slow further progress. Spagnuolo revealed the conversation and mindset the team had to regain control and dominance for the rest of the game during his Thursday press conference.
“Well, I can tell you, we rallied up there over on the sideline at one point, and I had a list of about five or six things that happened on five or six key plays, and they will all two or three of them were things that we had worked on,” Spagnuolon explained. “We didn’t do it like we didn’t practice. And I just felt like I just told my point was if you could just clean these up, we won’t be in the situation we’re in.
“We got to grind our way back. And I, to the guys’ credit, thought they did that. We got back, mentally, we had a couple of things that should have been handled a certain way and weren’t, and we had done it in practice. It wasn’t something that was new to them. So they shook it off, got the cobwebs out, and we got it right.”
Spagnuolo also made sure it was noted that his unit fully supports and is confident the offense led by Patrick Mahomes will always keep them in the game.
“It’s not easy to do, always,” Spagnuolo said. “But one thing that we always say is that we talked about this. I will almost always talk about it on a Saturday night. We believe that even when we get down, we should remain steadfast as a defensive unit and trust that we have a guy on the other side of the ball.
“Namely, the coach and all the players, when I’m talking about Patrick (Mahomes), can always find a way to score some points. So we should, hopefully, never be out of a game, even if we faulted early. And we’ve lived by that.”
