BALTIMORE — A black T-shirt was passing though the Kansas City Chiefs locker room faster than the cigar smoke following their fourth AFC championship in six years. The shirt had defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo’s face on it, with many of his players posing to get a picture with the defensive mastermind that sent the Chiefs to the Super Bowl — again.
Chiefs defensive back Justin Reid made sure the cameras saw the shirt with the four words attached to it: “In Spags We Trust.”
“Damn, that’s the boss bro. That’s the mastermind behind everything you see,” Chiefs defensive back Trent McDuffie said as his eyes lit up when Spags was mentioned. “I feel like everybody on this defense, shoot everyone in the building, really respects that man. He’s a generally good dude.
“I got a lot of love for him and he got a lot of love for us. He allows us to go out there and play.”
The Chiefs defense certainly looks like a carbon copy of Spagnuolo’s championship defenses with the New York Giants , or Jim Johnson’s dominant defenses with the Philadelphia Eagles (Spagnuolo was Johnson’s protégé in Philadelphia). The Chiefs held the Baltimore Ravens to a season-low 10 points and a season-high three turnovers in Sunday’s win.