Steve Spagnuolo Hasn't Hit Panic Button After Loss to Las Vegas Raiders

Things didn’t go exactly as Kansas City Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo had hoped in a 40-32 loss to the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 5.

He takes part of the blame for large pass plays given up for touchdowns and hopes to have the issues corrected ahead of Monday night’s matchup with the Buffalo Bills.

"There’s a play in there or a call in there I’d like to have back that resulted in one of those long passes, so I don’t think that’s on the players or anything the Raiders did,” Spagnuolo said. "We didn’t execute as well as we had in prior games, and when you do that and if you don’t execute obviously in the back end really well, it can result in explosive pass plays.”

Steve Spagnuolo blamed himself for a bad call that put Charvarius Ward in a bad spot. Assume he's talking about the long one to Ruggs. If so, really surprised that a safety wasn't supposed to be over the top. Also: love a coach who's secure enough to say my bad.
— Sam Mellinger (@mellinger) October 16, 2020

Within a series of nine defensive plays, the Chiefs gave up 214 yards and 21 points. Spagnuolo said he’s noticed the efforts to rebound from that sequence through some of the best walkthroughs the unit has had in the last year and a half.

He also noted the overall gameplan concept isn’t changing other than a few potential tweaks to adjust from Raiders week.

Here's Frank Clark: "It's about stopping the run first. Once we're able to do that, then we can rush the passer and have fun on that level.'' https://t.co/Xhm8RlHJdi
— Adam Teicher (@adamteicher) October 16, 2020

“You got to look at it, that’s what we do — that’s what coaches do,” Spagnuolo said. “But, you can’t hit the panic button. If you believe in what you’re doing, you stick with what you’re doing and just do it better. We didn’t do too much different than what we’ve done in the previous weeks, we just didn’t do it as well.”

The Chiefs could potentially face a similar obstacle against the Bills on Monday night, though.

Bills quarterback Josh Allen has three targets in Stefon Diggs, John Brown and Cole Beasley. Each of the three average 13.9 yards per catch.

Brown was inactive in Buffalo’s 42-16 loss to the Tennessee Titans, but is expected to play against the Chiefs.

“You can’t double them all because then you don’t have any players left to stop the run or rush the passer,” Spagnuolo said. “Somehow, some way, we need to affect the quarterback where we don’t give him all that time and he can hit those weapons he’s got downfield. Look at them. They got them all over the place and with 15 coming back it just creates another headache.”

Spagnuolo also has his eyes focused on improving the Chiefs' run defense, the fifth-worst in the NFL.

He noted his defense can't worry about getting to the quarterback until the run is completely settled.

"I’m always telling the guys that you earn the right to rush the passer and you’d better be good on first and second down to get into those obvious passing situations, then try to do those things that might challenge the quarterback and offensive line,” Spagnuolo said. “Part of our challenge is doing our best on first and second down.”

“We’ve just got to make sure that we limit those to give ourselves a chance to play better defense.”