Anatomy Of A Play: How Steve Spagnuolo Shut The Door On Josh Allen And the Bills

There are all kinds of reasons that the merciless Kansas City Chiefs are now in position to win their third-straight Super Bowl. The primary reason (unless you’re in the camp that believes the NFL is in the tank for the team via the officials) is a ruthless awareness that manifests itself at the best possible time for the team, and at the worst possible time for Kansas City’s opponents.

In the Chiefs’ 32-29 AFC Championship Game win over the Buffalo Bills, Buffalo’s final offensive play was a perfect example. The Bills had fourth-and-5 from their own 47-yard line with 2:00 left in the game, and the idea was to get the first down at worst, and into field goal range at best.  The Bills lined up in a condensed formation with an empty backfield. Receiver Khalil Shakir ran a windback motion pre-snap, which was ostensibly supposed to give Josh Allen a hot route if the blitz came.

It’s entirely possible that the Bills understood one of defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo’s primary schematic constructs: If you present him with a condensed formation in an obvious passing down, he will send at least one defensive back on a blitz in order to get at least one free rusher to the quarterback.

I learned this from the brilliant Cody Alexander, who pointed it out to me over a year ago.

On critical downs if you present a condensed alignment, Spags will blitz it.

Buffalo should have known…
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— Cody Alexander (@The_Coach_A) January 27, 2025

Well, here we were. The Chiefs sent cornerback Trent McDuffie AND safety Justin Reid on a blitz to Allen’s front side, and that led to three free rushers coming through. When McDuffie then dropped into coverage, that revealed another layer of Spagnuolo’s brilliance. Allen did what he does and nearly made something out of it with a pressured throw downfield to tight end Dalton Kincaid, and it was a near-miracle that Kincaid was in position to just about catch the ball at all.

Spags. pic.twitter.com/oU2VLsD1Ah

— Nate Tice (@Nate_Tice) January 27, 2025

“Yeah, they gave a good look,” Allen said of that play. “[I] didn’t see anything in my first cadence They were sliding [the pass rush, and the] left corner came.”  Chiefs defensive lineman Chris Jones knew that something special was coming.   “Spags called a heck of a play,” Jones recalled. “Everybody… the Bills know it, you knew it, the fans knew it. Spags was going to do something crazy there.

“It’s all year, building that. We worked through situations throughout the year within practice of late-game situations, two-minute situations. So, for us, it’s just another play.  “We were very comfortable in it. We trust Spags to put us in the right position to make a play.”

The real regret for the Bills will have to be that whether Spags’ defense showed anything in the first cadence or not, tendency tells you what the Chiefs are going to do in that situation, and against that particular formation.  Once again, the Chiefs had the answers to the test in the most crucial moment, and everyone else was left wondering how they keep nailing the darned things.