Tom Brady faces rival in Steve Spagnuolo, Super Bowl picks and more
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are in the Super Bowl, and quarterback Tom Brady is playing great. However, he faces an old rival in Steve Spagnuolo.
Tom Brady is the NFL’s version of Superman. But when Brady stares across the sideline next Sunday in Super Bowl LV, he’ll be starting at his Kryptonite who will be holding bars of it in both hands.
For as explosive as Patrick Mahomes, Tyreek Hill, Travis Kelce and the Kansas City Chiefs offense is — and they’re arguably the most dynamic collection of skill players assembled in the modern NFL era — defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo has quietly built a juggernaut defense as a worthy complement to K.C.’s offensive firepower.
“Spags is unique in that he knows exactly what he’s doing, and he can make adjustments very, very quickly,” former New York Giants defensive end Osi Umenyiora tells FanSided. “That’s the one thing I saw from him that I never saw from any other coordinators before or after.
“I saw this man literally on the sideline see what their offense was doing, call us all together on the sideline, draw up something on the chalkboard and say ‘now we’re going to run this,’ even though we hadn’t practiced it, hadn’t ran it ever before, but we’d go out there and it would work. It would work because [Spagnuolo] was able to identify what we were doing, what they were doing, and be able to adjust right there on the sideline. It was really incredible.”
Spagnuolo has been here before, and taken down Superman before.
Brady’s first Super Bowl loss, back in 2007, might be the one that left the biggest scar. Chasing history, and the chance to become only the NFL’s second unbeaten champion, Spagnuolo’s Giants knocked out Brady and the New England Patriots.
That Sunday, Spagnuolo revved up his NASCAR package — generating heavy pressure with his dominant defensive linemen. Defensive linemen Justin Tuck and Michael Strahan sacked Brady three times total, while Jay Alford and linebacker Kawika Mitchell each had one.
New York stifled Brady, holding him to 266 yards and a touchdown in a 17-14 upset, one of the biggest in Super Bowl history.
“Michael Strahan was a Hall of Fame player, and Justin Tuck was really coming into his own in the middle of the field,” Umenyiora said. “That’s something that really impacts Brady, when you’re able to get pressure up the middle. I was an All-Pro player coming off the edge, so there really was nowhere for Brady to go. There was nowhere for Brady to go. I know he’s the greatest quarterback ever, but when you’re facing a front-seven like that, it wasn’t going to be any different for him.
“We knew that we were going to be able to overwhelm their offensive line. It was the Super Bowl, there was a lot of pressure on them because they were undefeated, but from the time the game started we were right up in his face. We knew early on in the game that we were imposing our will on that offensive line and that Brady was going to have a long game.”
Spagnuolo certainly has the horses up front to dust off his Super Bowl XLII game plan– All-Pro defensive tackle Chris Jones, Pro Bowl edge rusher Frank Clark and undrafted rookie Tershawn Wharton are plenty disruptive, but, the Kryptonite Spagnuolo will wield against Brady in his home stadium will have a different, and perhaps even more effective tinge.
This time around, Spagnuolo won’t be afraid to blitz. In fact, given the Chiefs’ confidence in their cornerbacks, sending extra heat has become Kansas City’s hallmark.
Kansas City finished the regular season ninth in blitz percentage, bringing extra heat on 35.6 percent of defensive snaps. Josh Allen was forced to stare down blitzes off the edge, cornerback blitzes, delayed A-gap pressures, and a barrage of safety Tyrann Mathieu as the Chiefs sacked the surging Buffalo Bills quarterback four times in a 38-24 win.
Brady should expect much of the same treatment in the Super Bowl, largely because of Spagnuolo and the Chiefs’ confidence in Mathieu.
Mathieu is the ideal Swiss Army knife of a safety for Spagnuolo’s evolving schemes. As Pro Football Focus points out, Mathieu held opposing quarterbacks to a 64.9 passer rating this season and intercepted seven passes. He also produced eight pressures, allowing Spagnuolo to disguise blitzes and coverages in a way that mystified quarterbacks all season.
Brady included.
Earlier this season when the Chiefs flew to Tampa Bay to take on the team they’ll face in the Super Bowl, Brady passed for 345 yards with three touchdowns, but also tossed two interceptions, was hit eight times and was sacked once. The Chiefs led 27-10 in the fourth quarter before winning 27-24 win to improve to 10-1.
Yet somehow, it was Brady’s best outing against a Spagnuolo defense in recent memory.
Last season, on a cold and rainy Foxboro evening, Spagnuolo emptied the chamber and relentlessly sent the house at Brady, holding the Patriots’ quarterback to 169 yards with a touchdown, an interception and three sacks.
Umenyiora says he isn’t the least bit surprised Spagnuolo has found a new, but equally effective way of generating constant pressure on the quarterback.
“You have to know your personnel,” Umenyiora says. “A lot of times you see coaches who try to make players fit into their scheme, then you have coaches who make the scheme fit their players, and Spagnuolo is definitely the latter.
“They have some good players on the defensive line; Frank Clark and Chris Jones, but they aren’t the type of players that we had when we had four or five guys that could rush the passer. In this Super Bowl, he’s going to be multiple in his blitz schemes, he’s going to be multiple in his defenses, and he’s not just going to rely on his guys up front to get there and play coverage in the back.”
If Brady thought his two matchups with Spagnuolo defenses were crucibles, he’s in for a treat Sunday as Kansas City boasts the NFL’s sixth-best DVOA.
Spagnuolo’s Chiefs enter Super Sunday, as CBS Sports points out, as the best deep-ball defense in football. It is holding quarterbacks to a league-low 41 percent completion rate, has a league-best TD:INT ratio (10:15), and opponents have produced a NFL-worst 63.3 passer rating against Kansas City’s stifling secondary.
Will this finally be the day that Brady solves Spagnuolo? Can the crafty and evolving defensive coordinator keep Brady from getting sized for his seventh Super Bowl ring? The answer just might determine Super Bowl LV’s winner.
If Brady can conquer this bar of Kryptonite, it might be his most impressive Super Bowl victory yet. And not just because he will have dispelled the potential heir apparent to his throne as the game’s greatest quarterback, but because he would have solved one of the few defensive coordinators who appears to not only know the formula to taking down Superman, but has gotten his teams to execute it to near-perfection in the biggest game of all.
Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes? NFL insiders make their pick …
Super Bowl LV will feature arguably the greatest quarterback matchup of all time as the greatest to play the game, Brady, leads the Tampa Bay Buccaneers against arguably the most gifted player at the position with the brightest future, the Kansas City Chiefs’ Mahomes.
Brady will be making his 10th Super Bowl appearance — no other quarterback has played in more than five — and is in search of his seventh ring. It would be Brady’s first championship away from Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots.
Meanwhile, Mahomes has lost just one postseason game in his career — to Brady’s Patriots in the 2018 AFC Championship Game — and aims to be the first repeat Super Bowl winning quarterback since Brady pulled if off in 2003-04.
Brady has won Super Bowl rings over six different quarterbacks. Can Mahomes, 25, join Eli Manning and Nick Foles as just the third quarterback to beat the future first-ballot Hall of Famer in a Super Bowl?
If he does, Mahomes would take a significant step towards perhaps one day surpassing Brady for the mantle of the NFL’s greatest quarterback.
Ahead of Super Bowl Sunday, FanSided asked current NFL coaches and executives; if they had their pick, who would they field to win the Super Bowl? Each respondent was granted anonymity so they could speak freely about their choice.
NFC East offensive assistant:
“This is easy, I’d take Tom Brady with any team around him. His presence and winning mindset is contagious. You can see how he’s rubbed off on that entire Buccaneers team in just one year. Mahomes would only be my choice if he’s in an offense with Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce.”
AFC South coordinator:
“Give me Patrick Mahomes today, right now, because not only can he win this one, but I think he has a legitimate chance to win 10 more.”
NFC North offensive assistant:
“It’s Mahomes. The dude can literally make a mind-blowing play on 68 of the 68 snaps in an NFL game. If you look at Tom Brady, he can probably do that on 15-20 of the 68 plays per game.”
NFC East coordinator:
“The changing of the guard already happened, only we’re going to see the results next week … Patrick Mahomes here. Tom Brady threw three interceptions against the Packers! Tampa Bay won in spite of Tom Brady. Kansas City has too much speed on offense, if Tampa doesn’t get both of its safeties back, it’ll be bombs away!”
AFC South scout:
“If you watch right now, the Buccaneers are winning in spite of Tom Brady, not because of him. He hasn’t been good the past two weeks, in the second half against Green Bay, that wasn’t a “GOAT” performance, he was flat out bad. Patrick Mahomes is younger than Tom Brady, a better passer than Tom Brady, and a better athlete than Tom Brady with the same exact brain.”
The next Senior Bowl standouts
The Senior Bowl prides itself on being the start of draft season, it has also in recent years been a showcase that propelled quarterbacks into early-round picks after impressive showings in Mobile, Ala.
Justin Herbert and Daniel Jones, the two most recent MVPs of College Football’s premier All-Star Game went on to become top-10 picks of the Los Angeles Chargers and New York Giants.
Meanwhile, Jalen Hurts arrived in the Port City with questions to answer after an inconsistent career at Alabama and Oklahoma, only to eventually be chosen by the Philadelphia Eagles in the second round of last April’s draft.
As the scouting staffs and coaches from 30 teams shift their focus to Mobile, there are two quarterbacks, league sources say, primed to follow Hurts, Jones, and Herbert’s footsteps this week; Alabama’s Mac Jones along with Wake Forest and Georgia’s Jamie Newman.
Jones arrives wearing a newly minted National Championship ring after completing a career-high 77.4 percent of his passes for 4,500 yards with 41 touchdowns to just four interceptions while leading the Crimson Tide to an unbeaten season.
“Mac’s extremely accurate and has the ability to hit the deep-ball,” TEST Football Academy QB coach Tony Racioppi tells FanSided. “This week will be about whether he can move enough and can he show off enough arm-strength.”
Jones is the prototypical NFL quarterback; 6-foot-3 and 214 pounds with the temperament of a field general, but, Racioppi believes the 22-year-old must put some questions to rest this week in order to be pushed up boards across the league.
“Is he an NFL starter with talent, ability, and traits,” Racioppi wondered. “Or was he a good player playing on one of the most talented teams in college football history?
“I think evaluators want to see him in person, in an event type setting like this where talent is being evaluated each day to better evaluate him. If he does well this week, I think he climbs.”
While Jones has the pedigree and track record to draw the eyeballs of those watching from the bleachers and captivate the television audience glued to each practice, he’s not the only quarterback with the chance to really help himself this week.
Newman, 6-foot-4 and 230 pounds, opted out of this season and just might be the most intriguing prospect on the field.
As a Demon Deacon, Newman flashed the kind of mobility that makes general mangers pick their jaws off the floor, prior becoming a grad transfer to Georgia before opting out due to COVID-19 concerns and to begin his preparation for the NFL Draft.
A career 60.5 passer, Newman threw for 3,959 yards with 35 touchdowns to 16 interceptions while adding 826 rushing yards and 10 touchdowns in 19 games in Winston-Salem.
Newman has been working with renowned quarterback coach Quincy Avery, who has helped develop the likes of Deshaun Watson, Jalen Hurts, Dwayne Haskins, and Justin Fields, among others.
Avery believes this week has the chance to be Newman’s coming out party.
“People haven’t seen him throw in a long time,” Avery tells FanSided. “He’s made real strides, and I think people will be impressed.”
If Jones or Newman can rise above a crowded quarterback group that also includes Texas’ Sam Ehlinger, Notre Dame’s Ian Book, and Florida’s Kyle Trask, it won’t be a surprise to hear their name called much sooner in April than many have them projected to be drafted today.
Quotable
"“We’ve still only been together — since the Stef [Diggs] addition – one year. This is only my second year with Josh. I expect it to get better and better.” – Buffalo Bills WR Cole Beasley, via Syracuse.com"
Jump through one last plastic table, Bills Mafia, but take comfort in knowing that something special is building in Buffalo.
The Bills came up short, and it’s fair to wonder what might have been had head coach Sean McDermott and offensive coordinator Brian Daboll not decided to start trading field goals for touchdowns against the high-flying Chiefs in the AFC Championship Game.
But, Allen is a rising star who quickly blossomed into one of the NFL’s 10 most gifted passers this season, Diggs has the chance to blaze a Hall of Fame career catching passes from him, and the Bills’ defense finished fourth in DVOA with a menacing blitzkrieg mentality.
After easily dispatching of the Tennessee Titans and outlasting Lamar Jackson’s Baltimore Ravens on a night it seemed both teams and both quarterbacks were utterly out of sync in the swirling winds of Western New York, it’s easy to envision Mahomes and Allen developing into the next great quarterback rivalry in the NFL.
Kansas City won Round 1, but the Bills remain the team with the talent, the quarterback, and the coaching most capable of knocking out the champ in coming years.
Buy stock in plastic tables.
Final thought
Get ready for an offseason of unprecedented quarterback movement.
Following Saturday night’s announcement that Matthew Stafford and the Detroit Lions have decided to amicably absolve their 12-year marriage, there will now be no short of 15 starting-caliber quarterbacks potentially available.
That’s 47 percent of the league’s passers.
A quick aside about Stafford — Detroit really has squandered a Hall of Fame-caliber talent. Stafford currently sits 16th all time in passing yards (45,109), 16th in touchdowns (282), with a reasonable chance to surpass John Elway by the time he retires. The Lions simply failed to build around Stafford, who appeared in just three playoff games.
Anyway, with Stafford now joining the likes of Houston’s Deshaun Watson, the Jets’ Sam Darnold, Cowboys’ Dak Prescott as very much available, and questions surrounding the futures of MVP Aaron Rodgers, the Eagles’ beleaguered Carson Wentz, the Rams’ Jared Goff, and others, several teams are going to have the chance to dramatically upgrade their fortunes at quarterback.
Just how many teams should dip their toes into the market?
These situations seem carved into stone, at least for the foreseeable future; Arizona Cardinals (Kyler Murray), Baltimore Ravens (Lamar Jackson), Buffalo Bills (Josh Allen), Cincinnati Bengals (Joe Burrow), Cleveland Browns (Baker Mayfield), Jacksonville Jaguars (Trevor Lawrence), Kansas City Chiefs (Kansas City Chiefs), Los Angeles Chargers (Justin Herbert), Minnesota Vikings (Kirk Cousins’ contract), Seattle Seahawks (Russell Wilson), Tampa Bay Buccaneers (Tom Brady), and Tennessee Titans (Ryan Tannehill).
That’s 12 teams. The rest of the league could conceivably upgrade their situation instantly by adding a Prescott, a Watson, a Stafford, a Goff, or even a reinvigorated Wentz or healthy Alex Smith, for that matter.
Buckle up, a thrill-ride of an offseason, even by NFL standards, looms large.
Matt Lombardo is the site expert for GMenHQ, and writes Between The Hash Marks each Wednesday for FanSided. Follow Matt on Twitter: @MattLombardoNFL.