Chiefs: Bringing Back the Same Coaches – The opportunity for the Kansas City Chiefs to have the exact same coaches in consecutive years is undervalued. First, I’ll cover the importance of the same returning Defensive Coaches. Then, I’ll go over the advantages of having the same, Offensive and Special Teams, Coaches. In a previous article — Recipe of a NFL Dynasty — I stated all great teams have an exceptional Head Coach, highly skilled Offensive, Defensive, and Special Teams Coordinators along with top graded Position Coaches, and Assistant Coaches. So, we’ll start today with that premise being true for these Chiefs.
The Scaffolding Advantage
How many times has a team returned the entire coaching staff from a Super Bowl winning team? It is rare that you don’t have coaches get poached, after a Championship season. Now, with all the same coaches on tap, we’re into 2020 and moving forward, so both players and coaches can continue to build on what they learned from last year. Building, as in, scaffolding.
The defense needs to start the year strong, since they started last year poorly. While maintaining their top notch play against the pass, they must better defend against the run… all season long. The ascendance in their play last year started after the loss in Tennessee. Tyrann Mathieu and Frank Clark concurred that they had seen enough, and as Team Leaders, they decided to enforce the intensity in making an immediate difference.
Other Chiefs players listened to them and finally started to believe in, and to trust, what the coaches were trying to teach them. During the remaining 6 games, and then the playoffs, the defense played much, much better. Yes, they played well enough that they deserve some of the credit of helping win the Lombardi Trophy. Now, this year with the same coaches returning, they will have the defense ready to start this year, much the same way that they ended last year. Or at least that’s the idea.
Positive Affirmation
These coaches established a new environment last year, on all 3 team units. You can be sure they’ll be demanding the same this year. This includes:
- + chemistry
- + cohesion
- + teamwork, and
- + no egos
Here’s a :42 second video in which a question is asked by Chiefs.com’s Matt McMullen, of Tyreek Hill, about individual stats, and Hill shares about the team having “no egos:”
With the results of last year’s season, the Chiefs players believe in these coaches, value their knowledge of the game, and what it takes to win the ultimate prize. Players can now be more aggressive and sure of their jobs, right from the very start of the season. The coaches also know players strengths and weaknesses, right off the bat. Now we can expect DC Steve Spagnuolo to unleash the total wrath of his D on opposing teams, sooner rather than later. Plus, we know that Spags defense improves in year two. Ed Steele wrote a piece for footballfilmroom.com called, “Will Chiefs Defense Be Better in Year 2 Under Spagnuolo?” in which he states:
“Because of its complexity, adjusting to Steve Spagnuolo’s system isn’t easy. Once players get comfortable enough with it, though, it can become game-changing. Just think back to the 2007 Giants in their first year with Spagnuolo as Defensive Coordinator. They allowed 80 points in their first two games that season. 5 months later, they held Tom Brady and the 18-0 Patriots’ record-setting offense to 14 points in the Super Bowl.
In year 2, that Giants Defense improved in points, yards (passing, rushing, and total), and QB rating against.”
Plus, you may also recall, a piece I wrote earlier this year called, “K.C. Chiefs Defensive Evolution” in which I said that:
“Since Week 11 [in 2019], the Chiefs had yielded just 11.5 points per game, a spectacular decrease from the 23.9 points per game they gave up through the first 10 weeks of the season. Teams ran all over Kansas City through those first 10 outings, to the tune of 148.1 yards per game, but ever since the mindset transformed during their trip south of the border, the Chiefs had allowed just 95 yards a game on the ground.”
Assistant Coaches
DL – Brandon Daly
Daly is the perfect compliment to Spags style, as in, he likes his defensive lineman to be able to play all positions. He likes to give the offense different looks, so he wants players coming out of up stance, down stance, dropping back into pass coverage, and multiple blitz packages. It’s also nice to have the best DL coach in the NFL. Daly has helped win 4 Super Bowls.
LBs – Matt House
Huse is the best linebackers coach in the NFL. He was DC at Kentucky Wildcats from 2017-18. In 2018 he had LB Josh Allen, coached him up to win all of the national defensive player of the year awards in 2018: he was honored with the Bronko Nagurski Award, the Chuck Bednarik Award, the Ronnie Lott IMPACT Trophy and the Jack Lambert Award and SEC Defensive Player of the Year and First-Team All-SEC selection in 2018. Allen went on to be #5 draft pick to Jacksonville Jaguars and had high rankings against the run along with 10.5 sacks, all in his rookie year.
Then in 2019 House got the most that was possible from the K. C. Chiefs LBs, considering what he had to work with. Once he found the right mix of players. Now he has Willie Gay Jr. who has the potential to earn RDOY in 2020.
CBs – Sam Madison
Sam’s first year with the Chiefs was last year, 2019. His players over-achieved, as K.C. had one the toughest passing defensive squads in the league. The CBs and Safeties played very well together, and improved throughout the year. Second year UDFA, Charvarius Ward improved tremendously and if now a #1 CB. 6th round rookie Rashad Fenton not only saw the field but played well when he did getting the highest rating of any Chiefs CB with at least 299 snaps (which is what Fenton had).
Safeties – Dave Merritt
Dave Merritt has been a NFL coach for 20 years with the Cardinals, Giants, and the Jets. Merritt, along with Sam Madison, taught the Chiefs DBs to play with excellent technique, cohesion; and communication. Here’s Spags on Dave Merritt and his importance to him:
All four of these position coaches have either coached with, and/or played for, Spags previously… and, 3 of the 4 had won Super Bowls elsewhere. To have coaches who have played or coached in one kind of system together, raises their familiarity, communication level as well as value to the team and the process of coaching.
QB Coach Mike Kafka
Patrick and Mike have an excellent working relationship, as they totally trust one another. With that trust, Patrick will listen to his input, but at the same time Mike will listen to the feedback in return from Patrick. With Kafka having been at this position for 3 years now, he knows all of Mahomes’ strengths and weaknesses too. This enables Mike in, year 4, to concentrate on enhancing the good and improving on, the bad.
RBs Deland McCullough
With OC Eric Bieniemy having served as the RB coach previously, the Chiefs have the best RB coach that the NFL has seen recently. Which, also means that Deland has the best possible mentor in Eric Bieniemy. So, with being in the same offense in 4 consecutive years, now each new year he is better able to establish his own teaching techniques. Oh by the way, this year he has the luxury of having CEH, the only 1st round RB in the 2020 draft and, he’s the odds-on favorite for ROY. Plus, CEH has set the fantasy leagues on fire with his extreme hype.
WRs Greg Lewis
Lewis has been a coach with the Chiefs going into his 5th year now. The players talent level at this position seems to get better each year. Greg is unheralded as coach of the Legion of Zoom, but he was in K.C. before all the speed demons came together.
OL Andy Heck
Heck has been with the Chiefs for 8 years now, and he seems to find the right mix of starters every year, even when dealing with injuries to his 1st choices.
Continuity with quality coaches surely does enhance the team. All of the offensive position coaches have been at K.C. for multiple years now. Stats below show the results of having quality coaches coupled with upper tier players. Much of the same is expected again in 2020. We’ll anytime, with anything in life that you have success with, don’t we want to in order to have repeated success do the exact same thing again?
Long Term Planning
The final piece to a successful coaching staff is familiarity with each other. It makes it easy in order to know what each other is thinking, which leads to having all the good traits that I have talked about. So as you want the players on the same page, you also want to have the coaches on the same page with each other. Then you want the players and coaching staff on the same page together.
Special Teams
Coach Dave Toub – His returning is highly important also to the success of this unit. He knows what has been key ingredients to his scheme, and he knows where the failures were. So he knows in returning which players he needs to change to improve from the year before.
Summary
Andy Reid, and all the coaches, work together as well as an expensive Swiss timepiece. With every adjustment being a precise movement of the pieces. This year’s coaching staff is the best group of coaches that Andy has ever assembled, partially because it’s the same group of coaches he assembled last year. Couple that with this being the best group of players that Andy has ever assembled, and you have magic. That sure sounds like a good ending result to #runitback to me.
Alan Haupt — ArrowheadOne
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