Every year at the conclusion of training camp, Patrick Mahomes breathes a sigh of relief that he and the rest of the Kansas City Chiefs' offensive starters don't have to practice for another year against the pressure-based defensive schemes of coordinator Steve Spagnuolo.
"Everything looks so similar,'' Mahomes said of the pre-snap looks the Chiefs provide on defense. "But then he has so many different varieties of coverages and blitzes and different things that he can do and so you can never get a feel for what he's going to call because he'll just throw in random coverages and stuff like that every single series, it seems like. It's hard to prepare for.
"It prepares me for the season because I have the mastermind that I go up against all training camp.''
Spagnuolo has been getting positive results in many of his 12 seasons as an NFL defensive coordinator. He joined the Chiefs in 2019, and in his first five seasons Kansas City has won the Super Bowl three times, including in each of the last two years.
Seldom has the fury of a Spagnuolo defense been as evident as it was in last week's divisional round playoff win over the Houston Texans. The Chiefs sacked quarterback C.J. Stroud eight times. Stroud was sacked five times in the fourth quarter alone as the Chiefs, at one point, blitzed him on seven consecutive pass attempts.
Chiefs coach Andy Reid knows what it's like to call plays against Spagnuolo -- dating back to before they arrived in Kansas City. To Reid, Spagnuolo's greatest talent is not necessarily in the creativity of his blitzes but his touch for the right situation to call them, or not call them.
"He does a heck of a job of knowing when to use the different blitzes and that's half the battle,'' Reid said. "It's not how much you blitz. It's just how you utilize the blitzes and when you utilize them, so he's got a great feel for that.
"He gives you a lot of different looks [and] he's tough to go against with the different combinations that he has. He does a heck of a job with it."
The Chiefs put away the Texans' game in the fourth quarter in a four-play defensive sequence. Trailing 20-12, the Texans had a first down at the Kansas City 40. Spagnuolo ordered a blitz on the next four plays with Stroud throwing incomplete passes on the first three. Defensive end George Karlaftis sacked Stroud on fourth down. The Texans didn't take another snap outside of their 11 until late in the game, after the Chiefs had kicked a field goal to take a 23-12 lead.
Spagnuolo said more goes into a decision to blitz or not than down, distance, time remaining in the game and the score.
"Probably a little bit of more of a feel than anything else,'' Spagnuolo said. "I know the guys do enjoy that part of it. They like to be aggressive. I mean, every [defensive back] and every linebacker will tell you that they want to blitz. You can't do it every down and there may have been some in there earlier, if I go back, that didn't quite work the way we wanted. Fortunately for us, in that part of the game, the guys executed it exactly the way we had practiced it and they ended up being positive plays for us.''
The challenge for Spagnuolo and the Chiefs will be greater in Sunday's AFC Championship Game (6:30 p.m. ET, CBS) against the Buffalo Bills. Bills quarterback Josh Allen was sacked 14 times during the 17-game regular season and three additional times in two playoff games.
The Chiefs failed to sack Allen in Week 11, a 30-21 Bills victory. This week, the Chiefs have prioritized getting Allen and the Bills off the field on third downs better than they did in Week 11, when Buffalo converted nine times in 15 tries.
