Steve Spagnuolo: The Chiefs Can’t Replace L’Jarius Snead

Steve Spagnuolo: The Chiefs Can’t Replace L’Jarius Snead

The Chiefs are trying to become the first team in NFL history to three-peat as Super Bowl champions. The biggest question mark for Kansas City heading into the 2024-25 NFL Season is whether the team can replace L’Jarius Snead, who was traded to the Titans this offseason. Defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo was asked about how the team plans to replace Snead. Spags didn’t sugarcoat anything and basically acknowledged they can’t replace him.

“We’ll see. I don’t think anybody is going to replace LJ Sneed,” Spagnuolo said in his press conference, via transcript from the team. “I thought LJ had a remarkable year in everything that he did. There are some shoes there to fill, whether we do it with one person or two people or shift guys around, we’ll see.”

Side note: The way Brett Veach handled the Snead situation is completely embarrassing. I had a rant about it that you can see in the War Room post I did on the Chiefs. You will never convince me that it’s a really smart thing to franchise a player, have that player eat up all the cap resources so that you can’t sign anybody, and then trade that said player for a third round pick that you would have gotten the following year as a comp pick for losing Snead anyway. Veach is dumb as rocks. Unfortunately, the rest of the league is so dumb they make him look smart. It’s whether you’re willing to acknowledge the truth.

Getting back on track here, it sounds like the plan is to kick Trent McDuffie outside while giving the nickel corner reps to Chamarri Conner and Nic Jones. On paper, it sounds like a huge mistake because now you’re making your team worse in two areas instead of one. McDuffie performed really well in the slot a year ago. I don’t think that will be the case as an outside corner. It’s not who he is.

What’s more terrifying is that they are so broken in the secondary that they may need safety Justin Reid to play corner because they’re in emergency mode.

“We have some young guys working in there,” Spagnuolo said. “Trent can always certainly slide back in. We haven’t put Justin Reid in there, but I’m not so sure if we got in a pinch in an emergency [that] we [couldn’t] do that, but it’s good to have versatile guys.”

If you go look at the Chiefs depth chart, you will see that there is a black hole at the cornerback spot. Spags is right, the Chiefs have zero viable plan to replace Snead right now and he’s being totally honest about it.

Why did they trade him for a measly third rounder again? Nobody knows but what Veach does will never make sense to anybody. The smart people know he’s the most overrated GM in the league that hasn’t gotten virtually anything right minus the Patrick Mahomes pick.

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