New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce - Chiefs Steve Spagnuolo on Building an Elite Defense, Bribing Andy Reid & Battling Brady | EP 143

Episode Date: June 11, 2025

92%ers welcome back another episode of New Heights, brought to you by our friends at Zillow! Home just got real. On today’s episode, we’ve got a guest Chiefs fans have been asking for for a long time, defensive coordinator of the Kansas City Chiefs, Steve Spagnuolo, joins us today! Steve and the guys delve into everything from building a championship-winning defense to his thoughts on the Chiefs' draft class, the backstory of his decades-long relationship with Coach Reid, and his insights on the evolution of NFL offenses. We also get his take on Travis’ legendary INT, what it was like going up against the undefeated Patriots in the Super Bowl, which position is the hardest to game plan for, and so much more! For even more New Heights, check out our New Heights YouTube Membership! As a member, you'll get access to full episodes, bonus videos, badges, and other stuff that will make you stand out. To submit your team for Beer Bowl III, post your video on your preferred social media platform, tag NewHeightShow (with 1 S), and use #BeerBowl You can also listen to new episodes early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. ...Download the full podcast here:Wondery: https://wondery.app.link/s9hHTgtXpMbApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/new-heights/id1643745036Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/1y3SUbFMUSESC1N43tBleK?si=LsuQ4a5MRN6wGMcfVcuynwFollow New Heights on Social Media for all the best moments from the show: https://lnk.to/newheightshowCheck out all of our new Red, White, and Blue merch collection at https://homage.com/newheights Support the Show:  ZILLOW: Zillow. Home just got real. Zillow Home Loans, LLC is an Equal Housing Lender, NMLS 10287. For licensing information, go to http://nmlsconsumeraccess.org. 2600 Michelson Dr. Ste. 1201, Irvine, CA 92612, [phone]. Zillow Home Loans does not currently offer loans in New York. BuyAbility is a registered servicemark of Zillow Home Loans. ALL STATE: Checking first is smart. So, check https://Allstate.com first for a quote that could save you hundreds.ACCELERATOR: Get $5 off the Kelce Brothers’ favorite energy drink through Sunday the 15th by clipping the Variety Pack coupon:  https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/FB06B38E-F0C2-479F-9DA5-FD4A1C852B07?channel=NewHeights2025 DRAFT KINGS: Don’t miss out on all the action this week at DraftKings! Download the DraftKings app today! Sign-up using dkng.co/newheights or through promo code NEWHEIGHTS. GAMBLING PROBLEM? CALL 1-800-GAMBLER, [phone] or visit gamblinghelplinema.org (MA). Call 877-8-HOPENY/text HOPENY (467369) (NY). Please Gamble Responsibly. 888-789-7777/visit ccpg.org (CT), or visit www.mdgamblinghelp.org (MD).  21+ and present in most states. (18+ DC/KY/NH/WY). Void in ONT/OR/NH. Eligibility restrictions apply. On behalf of Boot Hill Casino & Resort (KS). 1 per new customer. $5+ first-time bet req. Max. $300 issued as non-withdrawable Bonus Bets if your bet wins. Bonus Bets expire in 7 days (168 hours). Stake removed from payout. Terms: sportsbook.draftkings.com/promos. Ends 6/22/25 at 11:59 PM ET. Sponsored by DK. Pick6 not available everywhere, including, but not limited to NY and CA-ONT (for up-to-date list of jurisdictions please visit pick6.draftkings.com/where-is-pick6-available). See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to new heights early and ad free plus unlock access to exclusive episodes of the show Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app Apple podcast or Spotify today Do you remember the pass that I threw against you? Wait a minute now that was against the Giants Did Lannan pick it off? Oh, yeah Well, I think I'm more so just threw it right to him It was the most impressive 80 yard torpedo of an interception. Coach Reed knows not to put me in that situation ever again.

I appreciate you doing that that day though, Travis. I appreciate you doing that. The funniest part is Alex Smith comes running over to me. And I'm just like, I can't even look Coach Reed in the face. He's like, don't worry about it. It was like a punt. I was like, it was second down. It was like a punt.

It was like a punt. I was like, it was second down. It was like a play. It was second down. Welcome back to New Heights, a Wondrry show produced by Wave Sports and Entertainment. We are your hosts and this show is brought to you by Zillow. Download the app today. I'm Travis Kelly. This is my big brother, Jason Kelsey out of Cleveland Heights. Hi, all right now. Shout out to those Bearcats. Subscribe on YouTube, OneDream Plus,

wherever you get your podcasts, and follow the show on all social media, at New Heights Show with 1S. Jason, tell the people what we have for them this week. We got another great episode for you guys. Got a little merch update for you guys, and we're gonna get to a guest you guys have all been asking for that we've been asking for,

that we're excited to have on, that that Steve Spagnola. That's right Chiefs is on right now. You're gonna want to see this one spags But first before we bring in spags, we're gonna get a little bit of that new news We got new merch we're gonna have Jake model these new bad boys off just in time for July 4th. We're kicking off the summer with the red, white and blue collection. We've got two new teas out now, a red, white and blue New Heights logo tea and a Brew Heights tea. Oh, I like that. Perfect for those backyard summer games. The Brew Heights are nice. I like that. Yeah. Brewer Heights, it's just, it's such a good name.

It rolls right off the tongue. Oh man, makes you wanna have a beer to be honest. Jake, can you like step back and give us a little spin? Did we get a little? Oh God, Brandon. I mean, are you gonna do it or not? Be a part of the damn show, Jake. There's nothing on the other side of the shirt, if I am.

If I am. Oh, and they get our first new heights appearance. Hey, hey. Love. All right. Give us a little give us a little give us a little hold it. Yeah, no, I guess. Yeah, there it is. There's nothing on the back here. Wait, I'll hold up the other one. Looks very good, though.

Who? Red, white, and blue. Red, white, and blue. All right. My dogs are going to go nuts. I'm going to hop out of here. Thank you, Jake. You nailed it. Thanks, white, and blue. Ooh, red, white, and blue. All right. My dogs are gonna go nuts. I'm gonna hop out of here. Thank you, Jake. You nailed it. Thanks, Jake. That's the red, white, and blue collection.

We've got two new tees out now, a red, white, and blue New Heights logo and a Brew Heights tee, perfect for those backyard summer get togethers. Get yours now at omg.com slash new heights. There's also time to submit your team for Beer Bowl 3. We need you 92%ers to send us your team submission videos. Reminder, we are judging based on team name,

costumes and vibes. That's right. All about the vibes. Drinking ability is an added bonus. All right, big change for the previous Beer Bowls. I will be competing this year, so you'll be able to compete against yours truly and Bo Allen.

To submit, post your video on your preferred social media platform, tag New Heights Show with 1S and use the hashtag Beer Bowl. Deadline to submit your team is Wednesday, June 18th. There may be other Eagles players participating. I'm not really sure. Unless you're Sidney Brown was in. Russ Tucker, I would assume is gonna want to be back in the J and big Jordan Mulan in that thing or what?

Jordan's usually out of town. All right. Let's get to our combo with Chiefs defense coordinator Steve spag. No, spags. Joining us today from Wittonsville, Massachusetts. Football coach for over 40 years, had nearly two dozen coaching roles in three countries. How about that? Nine states and the District of Columbia. A four-time Super Bowl champion, the only NFL coordinator to win a Super Bowl with two different franchises. Tom Brady has called him the bane of my existence. Now entering his seventh year with the chiefs as the most successful defense

coordinator in franchise history. You guys are the best. I'll tell you what, I think I paid Tom Brady a lot of money to say, You guys are the best. I'll tell you what, I think I paid Tom Brady a lot of money to see that. I don't think he worried about anybody to be honest with you. Well, hey. Coach, thank you so much for joining with us though, man. I love it. Appreciate you taking the time in the off season. I know things are starting to get riled up and everybody's starting to get excited. You got the rookies coming in in a few weeks,

maybe even this weekend coming up, huh? Coming up. Yeah, about four days will be Saturday, Sunday, Monday. We'll be cranking. You already know and it will get a rocket rolling on Tuesday, man. I'm pumped. Yeah, is rookie mini camp is crazy for the coaches as it is for the players. It's crazy in that well, you know I mean you got a bunch of guys in here that it's hard to get the scheme to them all at once But but I will say this what I really like about I think Andy would tell you the same thing and Jason you could appreciate this Like it's been now it's been a well, however long has been trapped since we had the last game And so the even if the coaches get out of you know

We've got to get tuned back up to and I think the rookie mini camp kind of gets us back in the groove. You know, the oil up your teaching technique, oil up the words, right? Put something new in and it's kind of a little bit of a trial run, Trav, before you guys come in on Tuesday and then we hit the ground running. We kind of get going. I've always, yeah, I've always liked it. That's awesome. Yeah, it really is. Well, we just got some new pieces. I know you're excited to work with revamp the the offensive

defensive lines and you got to how about that corner we got on seven picks? Little ball. You know, we could never have enough corn. All right. You know that you can never have enough. Oh, yeah. In this day and age, you can have a never enough. So we so we drafted those three defensive guys on Saturday, right? Yeah. And so Sunday when we're coming in here, Jason, Clark Hunt, Mr. Hunt, and some of the other guys around, they said, boy, you got plenty of guys

last night. Hey, Trav, you know what I said to him? I said, you know, when you're a kid and you get eight presents under the tree and you open them up after you open the eighth one, what are you looking for? That's what I said. I said, we might've gotten three, but I'm looking for more. You know, we can't have enough good defensive players. That's awesome, man. You already know.

We're pumped to get into the building, man. Where do we even start with this career, big guy? I mean, you've been with the Chiefs since 2019, but man. It'd be 19. That was honestly surprising to read because it feels like you just got there, but I mean, seventh year, you've had so much success there. I don't know. How's it been being with the Kansas City Chiefs, Coach? I owe that all to Andy. I mean, I've sat so,

you know, as interim head coach of the Giants and that end of the 2017 year when you guys won Jason and decided to take the year off, I thought it was a good time to do that. And then when you do that, guys, you listen, you just don't know whether the next opportunity is going to come. But thank God, you know, coach, Coach Reed and I are really close and he had enough confidence that he was, he said, hey, come on here, let's roll. It's been nothing but a huge blessing since. I mean, look, when you can be around the guys, we're around Jason, you know, you know most of them.

It's not just the Pack, it's in the Travs, but all these guys we have on defense, right, Travis, that are just good character guys. And just being in the building makes it all worthwhile. Now look at winning helps. We all know that we all enjoy this profession when you're winning. But but the way you know, coach Reed has built this thing with the guys that he's built it with. To me, that's makes coming to work a joy every day. It really does. And I'll tell you what coach the first day in OTA's when I saw this new defense in this new There are new DC and we had guys like Frank Clark and Tyron Matthew I mean we I mean it was a completely different look on defense from from especially in the off season

And there was a completely different energy Comradery and I think just the way you, like you said, Coach Reed does it a certain way, you do it a certain way as well where you bring everybody together and really work as a, like, you bring everybody together to work together to like find one goal. And it's been so cool to see how the defense has gone from the beginning of my career to where it is now. It's so amazing how well they communicate and they all know what each other is doing.

You know, Trav, you're hitting on something and I appreciate you saying that because I respect I mean, you guys know football. So when you see something and say something like that, that means a lot to me. But I will tell you this, I don't know if you guys I think you would agree, Jason, you just got done talking about Jeff Stoutland. Our assistant coaches, now I'm not talking about the coordinator, I'm talking about the other guys, I don't think get nearly enough credit for what you're just talking about, Travis.

When you start talking about guys that communicate and how it kind of gels together, that doesn't happen if you don't have a D-line coach in the D-line room doing it. And now everybody being on the same page and you, you take the egos and you throw them out of the room. And we've got guys that do that. I've been really, really fortunate that way, Trav, you know. Oh yeah. And I'll tell you what, because we've been fortunate enough to go as long as we do, our

staff has kind of stayed pretty much intact because by the time we get done, you know, a lot of those jobs have gone, but we we got a lot of guys on the defensive end offensive staff that deserve to be coordinators. And I think that's as important as anything myself. I'm with you. Coach, what do you think has been the biggest thing that has allowed you to continue to have so much success? Like, listen, I played against you when you were in New York, and some of the things you did as a coordinator would give us so many fits from the blitzes and the different looks and the multiplicity of things you'd have to be prepared for. But in Kansas City, it feels like it's gone to another level.

And I'm not saying this just because I'm here with you right now and I've told this to people, the job you and your staff and everybody and the players have done in Kansas City the past two or three years on defense, and everybody wants to talk about Travis Kelsey and Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid. Me too. Yeah, we all do. We all do. But what you guys have done over there has been absolutely remarkable and it was absolutely remarkable all season long this past year. Is it anything that different from what you've done before? How have you continued to evolve with the game to make it so dominant? It's just been remarkable to watch. I appreciate you saying that, Jason. The easy answer to that

is players. And I mean that because if you don't have that, there are a, I might be willing to say that most coaches that make their way to the NFL got a lot of of ideas, very creative, but you can only do so much with the guys you have if they're able to do it. Now I've said this before, I started this saying this two, three years ago, and it's still true now. Travis knows this because he knows the guys on the other side of the ball on defense that this is the highest percentage of cerebral players in one room, in the defensive room that I've ever had. And when you have that, then you can do the things that you're talking about, Jason, because it's hard to do it when you can't, you don't do it up here.

Do you rate that at a premium to run your system in particular? Because I mean, listen, you got these four, three defensive playing cover three, you know, how much do you really got to know? But like, you guys have so many different packages, different fronts and alignments and anyway, sorry. That is a, and I'll tell you what to, to Brett Veitch's credit and all the personnel people and Andy included. I mean, I value what I call football and get it.

Yeah. Right. You don't listen, you don't have to be a 4.0 student in college I mean, I don't ask about GPAs. Right? Trav wouldn't be able to play defense if we were asking about But football get it like you guys know what I'm talking about they get the game of football and yeah Yeah, the more guys you can get in your room that especially on defense and Trav, you know The guy in the middle that we have Yeah, you gotta have that guy in the middle

I mean the entire room legitimately like him and trank and then you add the safeties And even somebody that's that's that's an outside piece that you can move around like Trent I mean his understanding of the game and his understanding of offenses. And at this level, they're all those guys are at that level. Leo Chanel is the same way. I don't think there's if you're going to be a multiple defense, that guy in the middle has to be that like his Robin. I've been really lucky. So I've got Nick now.

Anthony Hitchens was like that trap. Yeah. When I first got here, when I was in New York, I had Antonio Pierce. Antonio Pierce became a head coach in this. I mean, Jeremiah Trotter was really good. Kelvin Shepherd is now the defensive coordinator, Detroit Lions. He was a Mike linebacker for me in New York. So if you if you've got those kind of guys right in the middle, it's like the center and the quarterback Jason on offense, right?

I mean, yeah. All right now. I mean, if you don't have that guy, you can't do all these things. Yeah. It reminds me of what Philly went through this year. We haven't had a great off-ball linebacker in a long time, like a game-changing guy. And when Zach Bond brought to the defense, you could just, it was so apparent how much better it made all three levels in playing in sync. And it feels like- Yeah, it started connecting it.

Whenever we watch Nick on tape, it was just so apparent how much of everything he was helping orchestrate and get lined up and just a tremendous amount of respect for that guy. I bet if you talk to all the other guys, I mean, he makes the other 10 better. Like he's telling the D-line what to do and he's signaling back here. And listen, when in doubt, when I, when in doubt, I tell him, do whatever Nick says. Whatever Nick tells you to do, just do it. It might not, it might not be exactly the way we put it. At least you'll be sound. That's exactly right.

Everybody be doing the same thing, but we got a big, a lot of trust in Nick. Good, good, good. We just had the draft. Do you want to talk about any of these guys in particular? What do you think of this D Tackle from Tennessee? What's your strengths? Omar? I'll tell you what, he's a, you know, who's a little bit like Travis is Turk. Nice. Yeah, a little bit like Turk. We lost Turk to the Carolina Panthers, one of my favorite teammates of all times from St. Louis. Yeah, I loved her. But this young guy, Jason, is a movement guy. It'd be really good. The defensive end, Gelletti that we got, I think he could play anywhere. And both these guys

are real smart. The corner, Noel Williams, the same way. And then we got a linebacker, I think is going to be really good. But all these guys are, I feel like will fit in the rooms they're going into. I think they will be kind of the mold that we would just get done talking about. They have football, get it. And again, you know, give Brett Veitch and his crew a lot of credit because they, they come around and what's great, we collaborate better here than anywhere I've ever been. I'm talking about personnel and coaching. And I think that is one of the keys to the success we've had. Take care.

Coach, you just said you're, you look forward to all the players when they're getting back around, not just the veterans, but these rookies when they're going to come in. Is there anything right away that you look at and that you love to see out of like a young play? Like what's that attribute that you're like, man, this is the guy I want on the team. This particular camp, I'll be keeping my eyes on those guys that pick it up the quickest. Now we're good. We actually listen, uh, some of these guys are coming in here and they're going to be swimming, but you, but you can, you can read out the ones right away that can't. And we purposely put probably too much install

in Jason. We probably do, but we do it on purpose to see who can handle it. And so the first thing I'll look at is guys that can get it mentally. And then next thing will be, because we're talking about guys that have come in trying to get a job, the guys that can play more than one position. Like if you're a guy that's a nickel safety or a nickel corner, if you're a guy that is a defensive end that can kick inside on third down, linebackers that can play all positions. So I, I kind of keep my eye on those two things. The football get it and the guys that are a little bit versatile. Yeah.

That versatility running, especially your system always gave us fits offensively because it's like, is this guy a DN? Am I counting this guy as a down lineman or a linebackers? Leo Chanel, responsible by the offensive line or the running back? Who am I giving him to? Because I don't want to give him to the running back. But I might have to because the safety is over here. Hey, Jason, what so what what would happen? Do you like coaching the league? Right? Yeah, what would happen if we

came out of the locker room before the game and everybody just switched jerseys? Oh my god. Nick had Leo's shirt on and because you're working off of numbers all week. Absolutely. You got a rolling deck. You're like, okay, 42 and 52 and 54 are down. Yeah, we consider them this. We consider them that. Especially when it comes to those situational downs where the packages are so much different than the base Personnel. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Hey, I want to do that something maybe a half time For everyone listening who doesn't understand this, the way protections work offensively, a lot of it is based on personnel and matchups.

What Coach does so well and what these versatile guys are so great at providing is they're a mismatch for a running back, but then they can also drop in coverage and be reliable to the point that if you put offense alignment on them, now all of a sudden Coach is getting numbers away from them in like a blitz package. So it always gave us fits. It gave us fits when you were in New York and it definitely gave us fits when you were with Kansas City. That's good to know. Spags is the ultimate chess player, baby.

The ultimate chess player. Yeah, Stout's going to be mad at me. He's going to be like, hey, no. We were just watching. We were just watching film this morning. I won't tell you what team it was, but I don't know why this happened, but two snaps in a row this offensive team put the running back on Chris Jones. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm like, wait, wait a minute. So we need to get down more often. Chris has linked in his chops. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Let's go to your relationship with Coach Reed. You talked about he's a big reason you're there.

How long have you known Big Red? Yeah, that's a good one, guys. So I go all the way back. So the connection was, I'm going to try to get the year for you. It had to be, it was late 80s, let's say. 88, 89. Oh man, the late 80s were, those were good days, those were good years. Yeah, you weren't even born yet. I snuck in there, Coach. It was October of 89, but I snuck in there.

So you were in like seven decades already, right? Andy took a job at the University of Texas El Paso with a head coach by the name of Bob Stull, who was here, the head coach of Missouri here for a little while. And a friend of mine that I had worked with at the University of Massachusetts got on that same staff. So Andy and Steve T. Lander, who was my friend, were on the, and I would go visit this friend, Steve T. Lander. And it was friend, were on the, and I would go visit this friend, Steve T. Lander. And it was just, when I was there, I was coaching, I think I was coaching at the University of Connecticut

at the time. And you'd go, listen, in college football, you'd go visit other staffs all the time, share information. That doesn't happen in the NFL. That's the one thing you lose when you get to this level, because nobody's sharing ideas, right? Nobody's telling you what they're doing. They're always keeping it up.

So that's where I first met Andy and then he went from there to Missouri. I was still coaching in college somewhere, but we always kind of, we just kind of had a connection, loved football. He was over on offense. I was on defense, but I enjoyed talking with him about that. And then eventually he got the job in, he's Green Bay, gets a job in Philadelphia in 99. And at the time I was coaching in NFL Europe. That was one of my overseas deals. And because of the connection I had had with Andy asked me to be a part of his staff, which was great. That's awesome. I owe him, I mean, I'm not in the NFL if it's not for

Andy Reid. Shout out to Big Red. He doesn't have three rings without you either, big guy. Well, that was a pretty good group effort, Travis. Oh yeah, oh yeah. You're welcome. We all had a piece of it, but. Yeah, exactly. That's cool, though.

I didn't know it went all the way back to El Paso, man. How about it? All the way back to El Paso, Texas. Yeah. I remember playing in a... Andy wasn't a golfer, but I think he came to the golf event and I just remember it was a heck of a time. And that's where you get, listen, players, coaches, it's a paternity, right? And you get around as many of these people as you can, usually down the road, it's a contact you made a long time ago to get you a big step. That's what happened to me. I know you said there's not a lot of, you know, coaching philosophies and techniques and things shared in the NFL, but I'd imagine you being around one of the greatest offensive

minds in the history of the NFL has shaped how you prepare and game plan. Like, what has that been like learning from the big guy? Awesome. I mean, listen, they, Travis and his crew, we were talking about outside of the ball. Let me tell you what the headaches we've got to go through in OTA. So the one time, one headache though, Travis, we don't have to go through is we don't have to worry about defending the run. There we go. Every call we make in OTAs and trading camps, we cameras to stop the passing. It could be second one.

We're going to go quarters. It's always special situations and yeah, we like to have the bone in Pat Bowman's hands. Maybe just a little bit. Probably, it's probably very smart. Yeah. Getting back to your point, Jason. I mean, Andy, listen, the great thing about Andy is he, you guys have seen how he has changed over the years. I mean, Andy, listen, the great thing about Andy is he you guys have seen how he has changed over the years. I mean, when we were defending them in 1999 and 2000, when I was just an assistant coach, it was really different. We had done the McNabb and you know, his boots and

it was way it was two backs and you know, flow pass and things. And now, you know, Andy's got people all over the place. So he's evolved with the game as good as anybody and give him tools like, you know, 87 and 15 and the rest of them. And Andy's going to find a way to score a lot of points. I mean, the offense from my rookie year and 13 to now is night and day different. It is night and day different. I look at some of the, I'll have fun when we're in training camp and I'll just peek at a few training camp clips from 2013 just to see how far I've come or how far I'm going back. I'll tell you what. Lining up at fullback for, you know, Jamal Charles and Nile Davis back in the day. It's a pretty funny sight to see. A little bit different.

Trying to meet Derrick Johnson in the B gap. We don't do that that much anymore. Shermanator's no longer there. Yeah, exactly. No, you don't have him there. You know, Jason, why was it? Because I was thinking about it today. The year you came out was the lockout year. It was. Yeah, I took a visit. I visited you when you were in St. Louis as the head coach. I was in St. Louis.

But I always thought that that you would have been in college, right, Travis? Still, you would have been in Cincinnati at that time. I would have thought that would have been one of the toughest things to do as a rookie coming in that year. No, no offseason. Boom. You're in the training camp. Right? I mean, talk about a challenge. It was odd. I got the playbook, believe it or not, coach, two days before training camp

started because they had just released. Because we couldn't give anything out. Especially for the later round picks. For some reason, there was like something that happened where if you were a first day pick or a second day pick, they like let you come to the facility or they gave you the book. But there was one day. They allowed one day. That's what it was. We drafted Sam Bradford in that draft and he was able to come to the office for one day. Yeah. And that was it. They locked everybody out again. It was nuts. It was nuts. Yeah. So yeah, I remember showing

up and I got into a really fortunate situation because Howard Mudd wanted a more athletic center. So I had an opportunity, but it was, it was swimming. It was swimming for sure. I, and we were running like in Cincinnati, we never had run these two back plays. We didn't do a lot of two back offense. That wasn't a staple of what we were doing, but like Fox two run and Fox three. And I was like, what, what are all these? I don't know what this is. Seven man protection.

What's that? I've never run seven. Yeah. So it was a learning curve for sure, but it was fun. It's funny when you say that. So it really, the college football has, all of that has kind of made its way now into the NFL, right?

Oh yeah, 100%. That's kind of how it's, it usually goes the other way, but it kind of went that way on the open, you know, the no huddles and all that. I think it was around 14 or 15 maybe that we we brought in I believe it was the head coach in Nevada because he was running that air raid offense. Chris Alt was it Chris Alt? Yes. So we were bringing it we were bringing in coats and he was and he was like kind of like implementing some of the stuff that he was doing knowing that Alex Smith that we had a quarterback had ran that spread

offense in college under urban Meyer at Utah it's himself so I read that it's sort of made its way in and then all of a sudden these RPOs come in and and Chip Kelly over in over in Philly actually brought a lot of those RPOs and spreading the teams out. Nick Foles throwing seven touchdowns a game over there in Philly. That was a fun year. So Jason, you know, and Travis, you probably know, when I first went to Philadelphia in 1999, I worked for a defensive coordinator by the name of Jim Johnson, who is legendary

in Philadelphia, right, Jason? Oh yeah. Yes. Yeah. You guys know that. So I can remember, it was probably early 2000s, because we're talking about how this football changed. And you know how travel on Saturday nights, when we have our snack, that the college games are on. And we're always watching the college games. And I can remember sitting there with Jim in one of those years and watching the college game and they were running an option football and Jim going, this is in 2000 now, right? I'm sure glad we don't have to worry about all that option shit. Really?

I don't want to be dealing with all that. And lo and behold, 10 years later, 12, 15 years later, and God bless him, we lost Jim and he wasn't coaching then. But now it is all in this league and we all got to worry about it. It makes it challenging. Yeah. And the quarterbacks are much more dual. All of them can run and move to a certain extent. Do you think it's reverting back a little bit though? This air raid offense spread stuff. Now you're seeing what San Fran and the Shanahan offense is doing so well, Detroit, Philadelphia, obviously, has been running the ball, they're still doing the zone reads, but they're finding ways to implement some of these smash mouth concepts that have kind of fallen out of favor. You know, it's funny, I keep, you know, I'm listening like you guys in the off

season to all the talk. And, you know, will it convert completely back to the way it was? I don't think so. I think throwing the football is still so exciting in this league. Defending, throwing the ball is still exciting. But I do think you will see more teams. Maybe the percentages of running will go up a little bit, but not everybody's going to have a Saquon Barkley. Everybody's looking at that right now, But those guys are tough. I guess running backs really are important. Yeah, I guess so, right? In offensive line, right? Listen, I coach offensive coaches are really smart in this league. So, you know, they'll go with anything that's working. I think there'll be a little bit more of a turn toward. I don't think anybody will get away from, you know, winning games ultimately with throwing the ball.

That's all. And especially when, let's face it, most of the time, the great teams are close games and close games come down to so often. And this is why Pat has been so successful in you guys in Kansas City. You guys, I mean, how many close games you guys close out last year that were one score just like, unbelievable, whether it's a block kick or a late minute. I mean, it was unbelievable. Watch 15 of them.

That's the truth. I mean, some of them you can't even explain, Travis, when you think about it. Really. I mean, how did that happen? Who knows? I said, oh no, how the hell Leo got that block in Denver? So crazy. Call of the Two.

Yeah, he did. Yeah, right. Do you think some of that conversion back is also what defenses have done? Like defensive now, and you guys have done a lot of this, playing a little bit more like shell, like two safeties back, still aggressive though. And teams are trying to figure that out, that quarter shift and what's the best way to attack it? Well, and what you're onto then, Jason, is because we're so past defense oriented that,

you know, running the ball and softening the, you know, getting you out of that and trying to throw the ball is still going to be the game that's going to happen. And I, you know, listen, you guys remember way back when, when, I mean, when the four three remember when the University of Miami had all those stuff, Warren Sapp was there and had it and they just sat in that shell, took care of the past all those stuff. Warren Sapp was there and had it and they just sat in that shell, took care of the past with those guys back there. But they didn't have to worry about having an extra gap on offense because Warren Sapp and the rest of them. Vince Will Fork, all those guys are caught.

Oh yeah, all those guys. Oh, they were just two gapping and just putting guys. So when you, when you, when you, I mean, listen, it's, and again, I go back, it comes back to players. When you've got players like that, you can play virtually anything right. And be successful. Now, when you're not quite as stout up there and and and you're trying to defend the pass and you guess wrong and they run the football and it's a 12, 15 yard run. And then you got to change it up. And that's where the game gets a little bit tough.

I think you'll see more of that, though, Jason. I agree with what you're saying. I really do. Yeah. All right. Before we move on from Coach Reed, you got any favorite Andy Reed stories from back in the day or any gold? You can tell us. They keep it kicking, but you know I had to at least ask.

Well, I will tell you this, Travis, and you'll be able to appreciate this. So now I get the job in 99. They're two years. About the third year, Travis, is when I met Maria, my wife, and you've met Maria. Of course, yes. And she's legendary, Jason, for the food that she makes. But here's what, so now I'm going to sit, I think I was like quality control or maybe I had become the safety coach or

something, but I'm trying to climb the ladder, right? So the one way to climb the ladder is to keep the head coach, you know, you keep this thing on his good side. So on Friday, on Fridays, when Maria would make the, whether it was banana pudding or the sweet potato pie or whatever, I'd always sneak one of those bad boys, maybe two or three of them. Because these are for you. These are separate them. Yeah. Coach is on this, right? Yeah. Coach, these are for you. These

are for you. We have a whole separate package. Yeah. Just if you need some fuel to get you through the evening. Hey, Travis, maybe that's why I got the chance to come here. There we go. There we go. Yeah. They have nothing to do with my coaching ability. They have to do with the banana pudding. That is too funny, man. That is a fucking golden Andy Reed story. I don't have any good dirt stories or anything. No, no, that was that was golden in itself right there. Yeah, he's got love in, you know that he's the best. Thanks for presenting sponsor Zillow.

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But ALS cannot take away hope for a brighter future. This June, join ALS Canada at the Walk to End ALS. Your participation and generous donations will fund community-based support and the best ALS research in the country. Find your local date, register, or donate at walktomndals.ca. How did it all start for you in the coaching world? How did you know you wanted to get into it? Was it always a passion of yours?

Yeah. I'll tell you what, Trav, I can go back to, I remember being in high school. Now listen, you guys know I didn't grow to be big like you do. So I didn't, we all wanted to be pro football players. I grew up outside of Boston, so it was either that or hockey. That wasn't going to happen. So we go. Go, baby.

So I decided that I did want to coach and I went to I went to Springfield College in Western Massachusetts. It was a big phys ed school, had pumped out a lot of coaches for that reason. And listen, when I went to college, my goal was to go to college, play division two football, I get a phys ed degree, come back to my high school, teach phys ed for the rest of my life and coach high school football. That was the that's a pretty good. That was a good that's what I was going to do. And then along the way, I got there. in that school had a lot of guys that had graduated and were coaching in college.

And so I got to meet those guys along. One of them was at Wake Forest and this guy was at Boston College. And so that kind of sparked my interest. And so I kind of set my sights on coaching in college football, which I did for 15 years. And, you know, in the back of your mind, you know, look at your you're hoping that maybe someday you get a break in coaching the NFL. But you know, then you were looking at a, you know, short white dude from New England, who else gonna hire that guy to coach football, you know? But luckily, we go back to the story of the connection with Andy that I was able to get a break. But it's all it's always my mother connection with Andy that I was able to get a break. But it's always, my mother was a teacher for 35, 40 years. So that, I think that bug of teaching and helping other people

and being able to see somebody go from being non skilled or slightly skilled to getting really good because you've helped them, that's kind of always been there. And that's what I enjoy. That's what I really enjoy about. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's awesome. What did your mom teach? She was actually a special needs teacher. So that takes a little bit of patience. English and special needs that she had and mostly the junior high and elementary school levels. That's awesome, man. Shout out to Mama Spags. Absolutely. Yeah, why not?

Right? Yeah, I got to. She pointed me in the right direction. We all needed that. Everybody needs that. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, you won your first Super Bowl in 2007 as a DC with the Giants against the undefeated New England Patriots.

How crazy was that to go into a game with the the the Mon stars that they had over there on that offensive side as well as the fact that they were going into it as unbeaten throughout the season. Listen, Trav, when I before that game and we had, you know, we had a good group of dudes, you know, you know, Michael and Stray hand and you guys, you guys know all those guys. Stray is the best man. But I will tell you this, when, when we started game planning for that game, because they were a juggernaut with the guys, they had most points scored ever in the NFL.

I thought if we could hold them under 30 points, that that would be a good, and Jason, that's not usually what you say. But I just felt like that if we didn't do that, we had no chance at least. And I thought our offense would score a little bit and it kind of went a different way. It became kind of a defensive battle, but they were that good and Tom was so deadly. You know how he is talking about cerebral, you do one thing, you know exactly where to go with it. And we had there were two or three wrinkles. And in every game, we always do that with chains two or three. They don't always work, Jason, you know, you figure out

a way to pick it up. But the two or three key things that we had actually worked in that game and made a huge, huge difference. The guys executed them perfect in critical situations. And I think that kind of built our little cut. The best thing that happened that year and really, and I think Mike Strahan and the guys will tell you this, Trout and Jason, that the key to having the confidence to beat them was when we played them in game 16. They beat us in the final game. They went 16 and 0.

We just kind of, it was a slugfest and we were right in there and I guys, I remember Justin Tuck walking off the field. I vividly remember this. We were in the end zone, a giant stadium and him saying, coach, if we get to play them again, we can get these guys like he just walking away. He felt that way that day. Now we didn't know that, you know, fast forward a month later, we were going to be in there playing the undefeated Patriots, but that our guys had that kind of confidence going into it. And when you got the leaders breathing and speaking confidence like

that, man, it just oozes into everybody else's, like, veins. Yeah, we just got on a roll. Justin Tuck is, he's one of those guys. So Do you guys know Justin? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. He's the real deal, man. Notre Dame guy, smart. You talk about another cerebral football. So this is what this is what Justin. So Justin was, right now, Trav, I usually use Leo for this and sometimes Drew Trankel, but he's our, Justin Tuck was our joker. You know, Jason, the guy that, no, he had a D lineman number on, so you counted as a D lineman.

He's never going to be counted as a lineman. Or in the D line. So Thursday is the big third down day, right Trav? And Jason, I'm sure you've done the D line. So Thursday is the big third down day, right? Jason, I'm sure you've done the same thing. And so we would put these blitzes in and he'd be the joker and I put them in all different spots. He would mess everything up on Thursday. It took and he'd say to me, coach, I'll be good. Just I'll be good. And he ultimately by the time Sunday rolled around, he was he had, Yeah, he had. It was awesome. But he was good.

Doesn't breed the most confidence from the coach in the middle of the way. When you walk away and you go, I got it. Should we take this out? Should we take that out? Yeah, he was he was the best. Those guys that that crew was a that was a special crew too. Really was. If you don't mind me asking, what were the wrinkles that you did to throw Tom or the

New England offense off? Just give us one. Just give us one. OK, the one the one we did was and you guys will know this. So, you know, I like to run overload pressures. Yes. So Porto side. Free safety well or Nick or Mike or whatever. Yeah. You know, and typically the the linebacker away from the overload, Jason would kind of sugar up and then he yeah and he's

pulling out and the minute he pulls out everybody turns over that way so that particular game I said look the first time we run this Antonio was supposed to come I said Antonio you don't go as the Mike linebacker and Kavika Mitchell did what we call a coffee house he made it look like he was but but he ended up going. And by the time he turned and went, nobody picked them up and we got a sack out of it. So the old coffee house. Yeah, exactly. And we did it early enough. I think we're once that happened, and it's something you would practice for two weeks, right? I think the guys go, holy shit, that works. That's great. Let's do the next thing. Let's do the next one.

So that helped that it worked on that particular day. They don't always work, like I said, but that was one of them. And just blitzing that guy once makes us be honest with it. Because we were going to a lot of times and like, Hey, every time this guy mugs up in the a gap, he bails and they blitz with the free safeties down over here, they're running the four to a side over here. So you're like trying to play that where it's like a number like this guy's right up on the ball if he comes The back better be pretty stout picking this guy up. Otherwise, it's not gonna be good So you just do that once and then all of a sudden the whole game plan now you're chasing that one

Right from the get-go because you're like, hey, it might happen again. I don't think we I don't think we ran it again in the game I think it was just that one shot. Yeah. Sometimes that's all it takes. And then it's just now we got to hire that guy. Yeah, that's right. That's right. That's right. Yep. Yep. I love it. Coach, I gotta ask you about your time in Frankfurt, dude, it I think it is such a unique opportunity. And it was cool. It had to be cool to go back to the city and actually play there last year.

You were the defensive coordinator for the Frankfurt Galaxy in Germany. And what did you take away from your time in Europe before coming back to coach in the NFL? Yeah, listen, first of all, because it was from there that Andy called me. I was going to go back the next year in 99, back to Frankfurt. Really? How about this? You had that much fun?

You loved those schnitzels that much, huh? I was good. Well, here's the thing. I actually, at the time, I think I was living in Toledo, Ohio. I was in Ohio. You guys know that, baby. I took a German class to try to learn a little bit more German because I thought I was going back. I learned nothing. I learned Dunker Shun and Wiener Schnitzel. That was about

all. What else do you need? What else do you need? You only learn a language if you're over there and you're speaking it. But listen, I spent two years in Afro-Europe. One year in Barcelona, Spain, that was in 92 or 93, and then in 98 in Frankfurt, Germany. And those were two of the funnest, most enjoyable coaching experiences. And one of the reasons, not only being over in Europe and seeing all that, that's kind of cool.

You guys have been there and everybody should go travel abroad because it's, it's, it's five figures great. I love it. Yeah. But the other thing was the, remember this now, the guys that we were coaching were all guys that might've got cut from an NFL team, right? That were looking for another shot. And so they were so, it was the most motivated, in tune, embraced group of guys you could have, because they were always, they're all trying to get somewhere else. It wasn't like they were chasing money, they were chasing another opportunity playing football. So I valued that. And to go back, Trav, with you guys, and it was two years ago, we went to Frankfurt. And it was at that same stadium. The last year I was there, we played in the World Bowl, we got beat by the the Rhine fire, but it was in that stadium.

It looked completely different when when we went back, Travis, because it was different when I was there. But but it was a great experience. And some of the people were still there that did remember that I coached there. That was that was really not as cool. I love it. I wish that league. I wish it was still.

Listen, Jace, I'll tell you what you talk about developing alignment. Yeah, that league was great for it. You know, who was just over there was it wasn't it's not NFL Europe anymore. But we just had Joe Thomas on. He was coaching over in Munich last year. And he said, yeah, he loved it. And in particular, the online guys and you're taking these guys that are new to the game. And it's a little bit different than what it was with NFL Europe. But it's he still loved it.

I went over when I first got here, Trav, in 2019, I went over to Italy to do a camp with some coaches from the Chicago Bears. It was a tie in with one of the coaches for the Bears was an Italian guy coaching that league. When you go over there and you work with European people that are into American football, you have the most captive audience. They're dedicated. Oh, they're into it and they love it. And listen, the level is completely different, but I just think it's great. I wish the NFL Europe would make its way back or, but anybody that's ever gone over there

to do that, just like Joe Thomas, they've always come away loving it. Let me ask you this. Do you think we'll ever see a division over there? There's been talk of it. Ooh. Maybe one team in London, one team in Germany. One in Milan, one in Dublin. It'd be fun.

First of all, I would love that, number one. But the thing would be, all right, so here's the hard part. You can go to, let's use the Dolphins. You go to the Miami, you're a free agent, right, Travis? You go to the Miami Dolphins for X number of dollars, or you could go to London for X number of dollars, which is basically half because one is pretty expensive. I mean, you got all those dynamics that kind of make it tough, but I sure wish that would just. I think it would be terrific. It makes the game global, right now I think it would be terrific. It makes the make the game global. Right? Yeah, I think it would be great. And it's starting to feel like from what Joe was

telling me from what you're telling me in Germany, like, I think the global demand for it is higher than it's ever been. And like when we go over to London, it's insane. I mean, it feels like an All Star game because there's really jerseys from all over the place. But it's pretty cool. But I know the only way the only time those trips are really fun though, Trav, is when you win. That's true. That's a good point. That's a good point. That sucks. I don't want to do that again. You gotta win. That's how it always works.

Unfortunate. We've won all our international games. So we've been fortunate. Thank you to our sponsor Allstate. Some people just know they could save hundreds on car insurance by checking Allstate first. You know how to check if you've got all the equipment before getting to your kids' games? Like you know to check if you've got enough charcoal before pulling out the barbecue. Like you know to check if you've got sunscreen first before heading to the beach? Checking first is smart, so check Allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds.

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on Spotify or Apple podcasts. Let's get to our last segment and get you out of here, coach. or Apple podcasts. Let's get to our last segment and get you out of here coach. We appreciate your time, but we got one last segment called we gotta ask, but you don't know the answer. We always end the combos. You can tell you can either answer it or you can tell us to kick rocks. Yeah, I can plead not guilty.

There you go. Plead the fifth. I can plead the fifth. Right? I can plead the fifth. Yeah. All right. What was your initial reaction to Justin Reed's in spags wheat trust t-shirt? I was trying to burn those. I mean, listen, it was humbling. So I love Justin. He's the best, but I had to shake my head. That's just hard for

me to see. Yeah, I was, I was, I was trying to burn them all. No, man. best. But I had to shake my head. That's just hard for me to see. Yeah, I was I was trying to burn them all. No, man. You know, I had to get one of those things. I know you're the best. Those things were selling like hotcakes, coach. So cool. I don't know about that. So you don't have one yourself? You didn't just sneak one for old memory?

I can honestly say I don't have one. That's too funny. I can look at my face. I can look in the mirror and see that same. I love it. So you're talking about Maria being a tremendous cook earlier. She's known to cook an Italian dinner for the players that have the best hit every win. And it's called the Cram Award. Is this real? Yeah. When did this start? That is real. And who gave her that idea? So we've always had an award. It's been called different things.

But two years ago, because it's been two seasons now, my wife loves animals. And so she gets on these videos and she found Tony Breaker is a comedian. He does these voiceovers, Jason, of like, just imagine two Rams, you know, that they're doing this, right? But he's talking through, they're funny. They're funny. And we always play, we always play. Yeah, we always play a clip of it before we give the award out. So Maria is the one that said, you ought to do this. You make the award. This Kramer would she's the one now. And then she offered to, you know, I said, well, we got to give him something. So that's where the pasta came in. But, but they

love it. Listen, they wait for Saturday mornings, child, to see who's got Chris Jones said to me one time, Listen, I don't want a game ball. I can give a game ball to somebody else. I can give a game ball to somebody else. I just want to win the Kroh Awards right here. Get Maria's pasta. That's Maria's pasta. It's so good. Is it always red?

What's Maria working with usually? She'll change it up? Yeah, Nick's not a red sauce guy, so... Okay. ...the white sauce. You name it, Jason, she can make it. I guarantee you. You name it, she'll make it.

You want to put your order in? I'm about to say I'm going to jump in on that bad boy. We've done it everywhere we've been. When we were in New York and we would do it for the defense there, the old lineman, Jason, found a way. Friday, they found, I heard later on that for some reason, all the defensive guys weren't getting the banana. Yeah. What's going on?

I was just me. It was Snee and it was O'Hara or a shadow arrow. Almost as deal. If we had a deal was big part of it. It was big. The deal. What am I going to? Hey, you got to feed the old lineman, right?

Travis doesn't matter. What? Come on now. You always got to feed the alignment, right? Travis doesn't matter. Just like you knew to take the pies to the head coach, the offense alignment know where the pies are coming from. I got to ask you this coach, what was your first impression of Travis Kelsey? Oh God. Well, the first impression would have been having to defend him when he was playing and that was like, what a headache. I'm going to go against this guy. Now, I think the one game when I was in New York, I think I got fortunate because one of your wide outs didn't play. And we were able, Jason, we put like three guys, double jobs, Kelsey, least doubled might've been trouble, but landing Collins plus the

linebacker plus. Exactly. Yeah. All over the place. We weren't going to let 87, but, but I, and then when I got to meet them here, I mean, listen, I'm not saying this cause you're sitting here, Chad, but you're one of the purest down to earth megastars that anybody could ever meet. And I just think that's, that's a great quality for both of you guys to be who you are and what you are in this world and to just be regular guys.

I mean, look at, I'm sitting here with the Kelsey brothers. That means the most coming for me coach. Here's what I would say is don't you got don't ever change. Yeah, because you're the real deal. I know you won't. You got a coach. Do you remember the the the the pass that I threw against you back in 2000? That was against the Giants. I remember it like it was yesterday and now I see it more than ever. Coach. Did Landon pick it off? Oh yeah, well I think I more so just threw it right to him.

He threw it right to him, yeah. It was the most impressive 80-yard torpedo of an interception, but it was... Well, he was going back to his Cincinnati game. That's right. That's exactly why I was in the... Playing Wildcat, yeah. Exactly why I got moved to the tight end. Hey, Travis, have you have you thrown? Well, you have thrown since, but I mean, that season, the boss go back to the well.

Oh, he did. Well, he got to understand I went gung ho and I just I did see it. I decided to I had one read and it was throw it to Tyreek and Tyreek looked like he was double covered. So I looked at the back side. Back across the field. Yeah, back across the field where coach told me to not. Not to throw it. You don't have a progression, Travis. You have one guy and then you run the football. And I was just

like, man, I'll tell you what. I don't know. I can do it. I'm just going to assess the defense. Yeah. And as soon as we got into a funky formation and the linebacker at the time, I forget the linebacker at the time, but he immediately checked to cover two to just kind of. It would have been Kevin. I think it was Calvin Shepard. Yes. Yeah. And it was just kind of just to make sure that they were prepared and ready for anything because we were in a weird formation. And sure enough, I get the ball. I see the backside safety kind of close on Tyreek to the

point where it kind of felt like I was hoping that would happen. Yeah, just so I could go and do my own things. He wanted to go a little rogue and show everybody he knew what was going on. Coach Reed knows not to not to put me in that situation ever again. I appreciate you doing that. The funniest part is Alex Smith comes running over to me and I'm just like, I can't even look coach read the faces. Like, don't worry about it. It was like a punt. I was like, it was second.

It was second. Yeah, no, you guys got us that day. Let me ask you this. Other thing that Travis is known for his laterals out of nowhere. Do you think that's an underutilized offensive tool? Is that difficult for defenses to defend? No question. I'm not sure I'd want anybody other than that.

That's a tricky deal from when I see it. When you're doing it, Travis, I go, yeah, everybody's hard stuff for a second. That's all good. That's all good. But no, that's a, for Nike, I watch these guys do it in practice all the time. And I think Travis, because the other guys now know that you're capable of that, they're aware, they get around. I've watched that kind of develop while we've been here. It wasn't always like that. But then once they know that when 87 gets the ball in his hands, he can do something special with it.

And that was the one that, what was the one, Trav, we had that we were offside on? Oh, Baltimore. Oh, not Baltimore, Buffalo. Buffalo. Buffalo. It was Buffalo, I think, two years ago. That was sweet.

That was so good. Sweet, sweet play. My God, I felt that it was man-to-man coverage and I just, I don't know what was, that was a bad, now that was the best throw of my NFL career right there. I threw that one about 30 yards across the field. That was awesome, man. I figured then we were in, we were good. That was beautiful.

It's like you're playing with Larry Burns. You're going to have your head on a swivel. Be ready for it, right? And Jason, going back to your point about, you know, practice. Now with Travis doing that in practice, because I think I see a little bit of that sowing up from other people. Detroit did it a few times this year. Yeah. Since we do it in practice, that will help us defend it if it gets done against us, which

I think is good. Yeah. There you go. As someone that has done it is throwing an NFL challenge flag fun because it just looks like Well running down and calling a timeout when you're not supposed to Messed up doing last year. I'll tell you this because I was a head coach for three years That's one of the that that's a pressure packed, tough thing to do and to put on, coach. I mean, listen, it's a, you gotta, you gotta trust the

person you got upstairs, right? You gotta, if you can't see it, you gotta feel good. It's got it. Cause nobody really wants to throw that thing and have a kid overturn. And every wide receiver is going to come over to you and tell you that they caught the ball. Absolutely. Now, now I want so and I had that happen when I was a head coach come running over and now I think it was my first year as a head coach, a rookie head coach. But if he say he caught it, he must have caught it. So that goes out and sure as shit, incomplete, incomplete.

But they all want to say that. Thanks for the tip. But you know what Travis, there are. Listen, I'm sure Coach Reed does this with you. There were certain guys, I'm sure, in his offense that he trusted. If they say, I caught that and he didn't see it or they didn't see it, then I'll bet you he's throwing it because he just believes in, you know, somebody's not saying it just to say it. And vice versa. I promise you, I'm not going to be that guy that tells coach Reid I caught the ball and he asked him. If it's a question, I'm like, coach, I'm not going to lie,

I have no idea. You're going to have to go to somebody else on this. You're going to have to ask phrase up there. Yeah. But it's a chat. That's a tricky deal is do you have a favorite Super Bowl win of your four? Oh Well, listen, yeah, well, let's put it this way So back when when we won in 07 and that was a that was a great Super Bowl win So it's the first you know, I you know what I prayed that that wouldn't be the most special moment in the NFL and the most special moment in the NFL. And fortunately for me, other ones came.

Because if that was the peak, I mean at the time I was 47 years old, so I had a little bit more time in the league, but every time you win one, that one at that time, right, Trav? That's the special one. I mean, but they all kind of rest on their own. Yeah, they have their own place for sure. I'm with you on that.

I will tell you this, Jason, the one when we beat the Eagles a couple years back. I know. I will tell you this, Jason, I still was not happy because we get you guys scored too many points, you know, you know how I am, Travis, it's about not giving up points. So that kind of ate at me even though we won the game. You bowed up when it mattered though. Well, yeah, but thank God our offense scored as many points as they did. No doubt. Man alive.

We've had this conversation before, it's hotly debated on the internet. As defensive coordinator, do you think the average person could get one yard in the NFL? Just put somebody out there. Can they get a yard? Take somebody out of the front row and just throw them in there and see. And like, are you guys for real, like put that on. Yeah, some legitimate jobs. Nah, I don't think they're going to pick you. Our guys are too good, too big, too fast, too strong. I mean, come on. You gotta know how to set up a block. You gotta know how to, like, there's so many.

It's not as easy as these guys are making them at. Do you guys remember the show? Didn't they have pros versus Joe's? Oh yeah. Great show. Oh yeah. I'll be on that. Jesse Armstead. You guys know who Jesse Armstead lined up in this league. Real good friend of mine. He's great. He's a University of Miami guy. He was on, I got the clip somewhere because when Jesse was with us in New York, I pulled it out, but he was on pros versus Joe's. And this guy came out, this, I pulled it out. But he was on Pros vs. Joes and this guy came out this I don't know who the dude was. He was in Jesse's face.

I'm going to tell you what, man, Jesse near killed him. Yeah, one shot. And that was like, holy crap. I thought that was a funny show. That was a Pros vs. Joes. Yeah. No, that show was one of my favorites, man. Yeah. It's hard for guys to do that and, you know,

I don't know, come back to play in the NFL, but that show is a blast. I hopefully hopefully they can remake that thing. Yeah, I thought it was that one. I guess it went away. I haven't seen a while. Yeah, I haven't seen it either. Who is the toughest player you ever had to game plan for in your career? Well, I mean, listen, Tom jumps out there because he's, yeah, because he was Tom Brady and we had some pretty good battles. But I will say this, these quarterbacks nowadays

that run and pass and Travis, it seems like we see him every week. Do you know what I mean? To me, they're the, so if you've got, you got the quarterback that's smart and intelligent can get you in and out of a bad play or a new good one that can throw the football and that can run it. And there's, they're in this league. Yeah, it's deadly. There seem to be more and more. To me, that's the, that is simply the toughest challenge.

You can take a, you can double a wide out. I mean, listen, if it's the running back and you want to over commit, you could take a way of running back for certain fears. But when the quarterback can do all of that. That's what I always felt. And listen, I think Saquon deserves all the credit he can get, but I've said this multiple times. When, when you have a running quarterback, it forces the defense to play it honest. They can't cheat to get those numbers right. No question. Where are you going to give it?

You got to be in some place where we're going to have leverage. That has opened up so much for the Eagles in my time there. It's the same thing. It's happened across the league with Lamar, even Josh Allen, all these guys. Yeah, they're all doing it. Patrick does it. Listen, when you third down to me, I love third down. We take a lot of pride in third down. And to me, when you can win third down, you got a pretty good chance of keeping the points low. When you win third down on offense, you're going to score points. And when you add to

defending on third down that the quarterback can pick it up with his legs for seven or eight, that makes it really hard. Because there's certain things you can't do and open up a lane for Josh Allen to take off and get a, or, you know, Jaylen did it in the, in the Super Bowl. We had, I thought we had really good co, yeah, you get the perfect coverage, but he finds a pass rush lane and boom, he's the first out because he gets it with his legs. Those are those are the challenging guys. Well we always ask everybody that's in the NFL this question. What was your welcome to the NFL moment? Oh welcome to the NFL moment. Okay you ready for this one? Yeah. I'm in Philadelphia as the quality control coach, the first year in 1999, we're in our first OTAs,

maybe it's the fourth, fifth, or sixth practice, whatever. I'm the guy in charge of bringing the book out that has the cards, you know, so you could stand up there and show the offense what to do, right? Well, at the time, in Philadelphia at the time, Jason, we were in veteran stadium. The vet.

The vet, and our offices and locker room was in the vet, but our practice fields, you had to drive or walk across the parking lot. So it was a quarter of a mile. And then the fields were out there and there was a little bubble there. Well, on this particular day, the quality control coach is supposed to have the book when the whistle, the horn goes and we're going to now we need to cut, forgot the book. I'm in a flat out panic because the books all the way in the vet over there. And listen, and I remember it to this day, Jim Johnson was terrific. He's like, no big deal. He walked over to like the quarterback coach and said, listen, give us a little bit of this, give us a little bit of that. You know, we ran 10 plays and then the offense goes now, right?

Trav, they were up. So at that time I was sprinting to the parking lot to go get that book. And I got back before the next period began. But that was what I thought my NFL career was done. That's amazing. I would have been in pure panic. I'm panicking right now just thinking about being high. I thought I had ruined the whole thing but that one just kind of sticks out because it was early but it was great. That's incredible coach. Yeah. 92% as coach Spags baby. You guys are the best man. Thank you so much for the time, the stories. That was awesome coach. I appreciate you guys asking me to do it.

I really do. When I was your guy's age, I was dreaming about being on the Kelsey Brothers show. Ah, that's too good. You're the best coach. Always wanted to be on the Kelsey Brothers show. A dream come true for all of us, big guy. Here's what I'm gonna do.

I'm gonna go up right now and take another hour or two, Jason, to figure out how to stop whatever Coach Reed and Travis and Patrick are. They're driving shit in the dirt. They're trying to beat us in the OTA. I love it, I love it. You know it. You guys are the best, man.

Alrighty, that wraps up another episode of New Heights. Make sure you're subscribed on YouTube to the New Heights channel. Follow New Heights on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes of New Heights. Make sure you're subscribed on YouTube to the New Heights channel. Follow New Heights on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes of New Heights early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Once again, New Heights is a Wondery show produced by Wave Sports and Entertainment and brought to you by Zillow. Download this app today. Follow the show on all social media at New

Heights Show with 1S. Thank you to our production and crew always making us look good and shout out to Spags. Can't wait to run it up with you again this year man. Had so much fun with that one. 92%ers appreciate you guys tuning in. Hopefully you guys enjoyed this Spags episode. Peace. Thank you everyone. Follow New Heights on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcast. You can listen to New Heights early and ad free. Plus enjoy exclusive episodes of the show by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify today. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondry.com

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