RAMS SHOCKING NEWS: Former Rams Coach Handed Unexpected Chance No One Could Think Of

After winning another Super Bowl, Steve Spagnuolo’s dismal record as the Rams’ head coach may be improved.

Steve Spagnuolo was one of the few head coaches in NFL history to be permitted to lose 14 or more games twice in his career, and he did so for three years with the St. Louis Rams.

Four Super Bowl titles are now added to Spagnuolo’s résumé, after his five years of stardom as the defensive coordinator for the Kansas City Chiefs.
Due to clubs’ reluctance to name Spagnuolo head coach again, he has been dubbed the NFL’s most valuable coordinator; yet, given that he is the most talked-about coach heading into another Super Bowl, I’m not sure how accurate that statement is.

For all his faults as a head coach, Spagnuolo could do the impossible and convince just one league owner that his defense could translate to another team.

Spagnuolo began his career as a free agent in 1981 as a 22-year-old graduate assistant at UMass. He interned with the Washington Redskins in 1983, but he did not return to the NFL until 1999 when Andy Reid hired him to coach defensive quality control for the Eagles.

With a roster that included coaches like Leslie Frazier, Brad Childress, Ron Rivera, John Harbaugh, Sean McDermott, and David Culley, Spags would win four NFC Championships and one Super Bowl with Philadelphia. He was brought on by Tom Coughlin as the Giants defensive coordinator in 2007, and the “NASCAR package” inspired pass rushers like Justin Tuck and Osi Umenyiora to record more than ten sacks apiece.
Given the 49ers’ desperate need for one more game-winning play,

It’s January 14th, 2012. We’re at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. With 14 seconds to play, down three, and facing a third down, the 49ers need a score to keep their playoff hopes alive – without needing to roll the dice in overtime. The Saints meanwhile can end this here with a takeaway and head to the NFC Championship Game themselves. To understand how we got here and to appreciate everything this moment represents, we need to rewind.

The Giants stunned the world by upsetting the undefeated Patriots in the Super Bowl, winning 17-14.

After leading New York to a top-5 defense in 2008, the Rams hired Spagnuolo to replace Scott Linehan after a 2-14 season that saw Jim Haslett interim the team to a 2-10 record in the final 12. Though St. Louis somehow managed to do worse under Spagnuolo in 2009, going 1-15, the defense went from bottom-2 to top-12 in his second season and St. Louis went 7-9.

Regretfully, the Rams were the NFL’s worst offence by a large margin in 2011 when Josh McDaniels was their offensive coordinator, and they ended 2-14. To ensure another seven or eight seasons, Spags was let to finish the season but was sacked and Jeff Fisher took his position.

Any head coach who goes 10-38 ought to be fired, but in Spag’s situation, I’m not so sure anymore.
He played for the Giants as defensive coordinator for four seasons after spending one with Sean Payton in 2012, two with Harbaugh on the Ravens, and four more with the Giants. In 2016, the club gave up the second-fewest points in the NFL.

Out of the league for a year in 2018, a familiar name came calling when the Chiefs needed someone to save the defense from Bob Sutton: Andy Reid asked Spagnuolo to come back to him in 2019 and the Chiefs have won three Super Bowls, four AFC titles, and reached the AFC Championship game in all five of his years as DC. There is no chance that the Chiefs win their third Super Bowl championship with Reid and Patrick Mahomes in 2023 if not for Steve Spagnuolo.

He may be 64 and have a career-winning percentage of .212, but there might not be a defensive coordinator in the NFL who knew how to stop the San Francisco 49ers except for Spagnuolo. You can’t hire Spagnuolo as a defensive coordinator, he’s not leaving Kansas City for that. He’s the only DC in history to win Super Bowls with two different teams.

Will a team be willing to hand over the team to him as head coach though because of a desperate act to stop the widespread Shanahan offense?

Spagnuolo said before the Super Bowl that he hopes so:

“I would love [being a head coach again], just because I think you always want another chance at it,” he said this week after his Chiefs arrived for Super Bowl LVIII. “And I loved having a whole team.

“But I’m OK if we keep going to Super Bowls. It’s tough to get a head job when you keep playing in the playoffs this late.”

In a year in which Raheem Morris and Dan Quinn got second chances, it’s hard to imagine why Spagnuolo would be completely ignored. Not one team has requested Spagnuolo for an interview since at least 2019. Rams fans might say, “Yeah, we get it” but three Super Bowl wins later, people can change.