Analysis: How a former Vikings assistant has won six Super Bowls in perhaps the greatest coaching career you’ve never heard about

NEW ORLEANS – If you’re ever searching for Brendan Daly and don’t know where to look next, head for the Super Bowl city in early February.

Fired by the Vikings as part of Leslie Frazier’s staff 11 years ago, Daly has coached in 11 straight AFC Championship games and will make it nine of 11 Super Bowls when his Kansas City Chiefs go for an unprecedented three-peat against the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LIX on Sunday at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans.

“Lord of the rings” is what playful teammates have been calling Andy Reid’s linebackers coach within earshot of reporters all week in the Big Easy.

When asked where he keeps his SIX rings – three in five years with Bill Belichick’s Patriots and three in five years with Chiefs (so far) – the 49-year-old with the excellent sense of humor has been saying, “In a bank in Switzerland.”

“It’s been a good run,” he’s told reporters.

Indeed.

If the Chiefs win Sunday, Daly’s seventh ring will tie Tom Brady — whom Daly used to sit next to on the same team bus before every game in New England — and former long-time 49ers front office executive Neal Dahlen. It’s believed that Belichick, with eight rings, including two as Giants defensive coordinator, is the only person on the planet with more.

Yes, believe it or not, this is a Chiefs story that made it eight paragraphs without mentioning Patrick Mahomes. Yes, Mahomes, Reid and tight end Travis Kelce are the offensive wizards on the Mount Rushmore of this raging NFL dynasty.

But let’s make room up there for defensive greatness, too.

Daly’s boss, defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, isn’t a household name among the K.C. Swifties, but the 65-year-old is making as strong a case as you’ll ever see for a coordinator to reach the Hall of Fame despite a head coaching record of 11-41.

Spags was the Giants defensive coordinator in 2007 when their defense was the primary reason Belichick, Brady and Randy Moss’ record-breaking offense couldn’t complete a perfect 20-0 season in the Super Bowl.

And it was Spags that Reid turned to within 48 hours of the Chiefs losing 37-31 to the Patriots at home in the first of Mahomes’ seven straight AFC title games back in January 2019.

With Brady running mental circles around then-defensive coordinator Bob Sutton, the Patriots put up 524 yards of offense while converting 13-of-19 third downs (68.4%). Kansas City also was 24th in scoring defense (26.6) that season.

With Spags on board, the Chiefs have surrendered an average of 339 yards in six straight AFC title games, five won by the Chiefs. Also, since Spags took over, the Chiefs have ranked seventh (19.3), 10th (22.6), eighth (21.4), 15th (21.7), second (17.3) and fourth (19.2) in scoring defense.

Many will, and have, argued that Kansas City’s strength the last two years has been 1, Spagnuolo’s pressure defense and 1b, Mahomes’ fourth-quarter Houdini-onics during a record streak of 17 straight one-score wins.

“I think the thing I appreciate most is watching the trust the players have in him,” Reid said of Spags this week. “They trust his scheme. He’s a good teacher. They trust him as a person and they know he’s going to try to put them in the best position.”

He also has an eye for talented assistants like Daly, who got his first NFL gig in 2006 when Brad Childress got the Vikings head coaching job after serving as Reid’s offensive coordinator in Philadelphia.

“Brendan was a young disciple of Pete Jenkins, who has been the preeminent expert/coach of defensive linemen for years,” said Childress, who made Daly his assistant line coach to Karl Dunbar, another disciple of Jenkins.

Three years later, Daly got a better offer from Spagnuolo, the first-year head coach in St. Louis in 2009.

“Spags stole him from me,” Childress said.

A promotion and a 150% raise to $250,000 to work as Spags’ lead defensive line coach was the good news. The bad news was going 1-15 in 2009 and 7-9 in 2010 and being fired after going 2-14 in 2011. By then, Childress also had been fired but Frazier brought Daly back as his D-line coach.

Believe it or not, the guy going for his seventh Super Bowl ring went winless in his first year as a coach. A 1997 graduate of Drake, Daly got a job as line coach at Ridgewood High in Florida. The team went 0-10 and got outscored 450-145.

Daly ended up bouncing around. Five jobs in different states. Moving 10 times in 16 years. Low-level to position coach jobs at Drake, Maryland, Oklahoma State, Villanova, Illinois State and back to Villanova, where he says he had a room under the stands inside the stadium.

He often banged his head on the steps that doubled as his ceiling, but, hey, “There was no commute,” he joked this week.

Spags actually was Childress’ first choice as defensive coordinator when he was hired in Minnesota. Spags ended up staying in Philly as Reid’s linebackers coach before getting the Giants DC job a year later. Childress jokingly “settled” for Mike Tomlin, who became the Steelers coach a year later.

Of all the offenses that Spags has tussled with the past six postseasons, Philly’s confounded him the most. In Kansas City’s 38-35 Super Bowl victory two years ago, the Eagles put up 417 yards while going 11-for-18 on third downs and 2-for-2 on fourth downs.

Spags has a knack for knowing when to crank up the blitz packages and when to back off. According to Pro Football Network, Kansas City has blitzed 29.7% of the time this season, ninth most in the league, but has backed off in the playoffs, giving the Eagles more to prepare for.

In the AFC title game, Spags blitzed MVP Josh Allen only seven times. Allen was pressured only two of those times. But one of them was the game-clinching play on fourth-and-5 on the final drive.

If Spags can do something like that again, he’ll be collecting his fifth Super Bowl ring.

And he’ll still be two rings behind Daly, his linebackers coach who turned his firing in Minnesota into perhaps the greatest coaching career most people have never heard about.