The Kansas City Chiefs kick off their season against the Los Angeles Chargers this Friday night in São Paulo, Brazil — and there’s always a little bit of a learning curve during the first game of the season. Teams are still figuring out what their identity will be, trying to get in sync with the flow of the game — even though they’ve now reached the point that every snap matters. Some teams start slowly. Others evolve over the course of the season.
No one knows this better than Kansas City defensive
coordinator Steve Spagnuolo.
“You don’t fully know what you have, what you’re gonna be [or] what you’re gonna be able to do from a defensive scheme standpoint until you’re in the first quarter of the season,” he told reporters on Monday.
Spagnuolo said that when he’s scouting opponents later in the year, he even purposefully avoids early-season tape, simply because it’s not a good representation of what most teams have become by that point.
But make no mistake: that won’t give the Chiefs any excuses in Brazil.
“I mean, listen, these, these early games — especially a divisional game?” noted Spagnuolo. “We’ve got to win the divisional game. There’s not a portion of that where we’re trying to hide anything.”
Spagnuolo chooses a new motto for his unit every season. In 2025, it’s a simple one: “Be bold. Be great.”
“We needed to play bolder,” Spagnuolo said of this simple statement of his vision. “Not cautious, you know — not worrying about making mistakes. That, kind of, was the message.”
But Spagnuolo wasn’t telling his players to take chances by doing risky things.
“You can’t go into a game and play bold,” insisted the coordinator, “unless you’ve prepared.”
“Spags does have a lot of mottos,” said defensive tackle Chris Jones on Sunday. “’Be bold, be great?’ [It means], ‘Be bold in your play. Be bold in your decision-making — and also be detailed.’ [It’s about] being great on details — and being great on persistence and consistency.”
With regard to the Chargers, Jones identified their second-year wide receiver Ladd McConkey as one of the details the defense will have to consider.
“They’ve got a lot of talent over there,” said Jones, “and it’s going to be a challenge for us. Last year, we didn’t get to play against McCocklin [very much] — if I’m saying his name right.”
He wasn’t. But the defensive tackle’s point of emphasis was clear.
“That’s a challenge for us, also — because they tend to get him the ball.”
It’s going to be a tough road test on an international stage — and even if Spagnuolo does end up throwing away the tape, it’s going to be crucial for Kansas City to do enough things right to walk off the field with a victory.
