Did Rams make colossal mistake by hiring Steve Spagnuolo in 2009? This writers says absolutely
Steve Spagnuolo has won four Super Bowls as a coach and is cited as arguably the most valuable assistants in the league so could it really be that large of a blunder when the St. Louis Rams hired him to be the head coach in 2009? According to a list of the worst coaching hires of the century by CBS Sports, the answer is yes.
Writer Cody Benjamin believes that in spite of his success as the Chiefs defensive coordinator, Spagnuolo was to blame for all of the Rams injuries and poor front office decisions at the time:
15. Steve Spagnuolo (Rams)
Record: 10-38
Another example of a fearsome coordinator who couldn’t translate defensive genius to head coaching dominance, Spagnuolo is currently the face of the Chiefs’ perennially stingy Super Bowl-contending defense. Long ago, however, right after a separate successful stint running the Giants’ defense, “Spags” struggled to keep Sam Bradford upright and supported while the Rams bumbled through some of their last seasons in St. Louis.
The Rams hired Spagnuolo after he had spent two years as the defensive coordinator of the New York Giants, winning the Super Bowl over the Patriots in 2007. Previous to that job, Spagnuolo spent eight years working for Andy Reid in Philadelphia, reaching four NFC Championship games and another Super Bowl.
Between the two entities, the Rams were far worse than Spagnuolo’s teams.
Coming off of a 3-13 record in 2007 and 2-14 in 2008, St. Louis hired Spagnuolo when they were the worst team in the NFL but didn’t have the top pick in 2009. GM Bill Devaney drafted tackle Jason Smith with the second pick in the 2009 draft, narrowly missing out on Matthew Stafford.
Spagnuolo went 1-15 in his first season, unable to salvage anything from a season in which Kyle Boller and Keith Null each started four games at quarterback. And other than rookie James Laurinaitis, did the defense have a single player who a coach would choose to start on defense if he didn’t have to?
The Rams finally landed a quarterback when Sam Bradford was the number one pick in 2010 and Spagnuolo went 7-9 that season. His defense finished 10th in points per drive allowed, an improvement from 28th the previous year.
But injury problems followed Bradford from college to the NFL. He missed six games in 2011 and the Rams went 1-5 with starters A.J. Feeley and Kellen Clemens. Bradford, who never had a number one receiver (barely a number two) during Spagnuolo’s career in St. Louis, threw six touchdowns in 10 starts.
Rams COO Kevin Demoff has publicly defended Spagnuolo’s 10-38 record and said that it is “past time” for him to get a second head coaching opportunity.
In spite of Spagnuolo’s six-year tenure as Kansas City’s defensive coordinator, ranking top-10 in points allowed in five of those seasons, he has yet to get any serious consideration for a head coaching opportunity.
Spagnuolo’s time with the St. Louis Rams was a disaster. But with the benefit of hindsight it should be easy for us to tell that he was hardly the main reason for it.