Ravens Hire Steve Spagnuolo

Yesterday, the Ravens added to their coaching staff by hiring Steve Spagnuolo to be a senior defensive assistant.

Spagnuolo has been the St. Louis Rams head coach and defensive coordinator for the Giants and Saints.  Last season he was with the Saints but was fired after only one season because his defense gave up a league worst 7,042 yards.

One of the main reasons that Spagnuolo decided to come to the Ravens over other teams was the fact that he has coaching experience with Ravens head coach John Harbaugh.  They spent eight years together on the Philadelphia Eagles staff before Spagnuolo left to become the Giants defensive coordinator.

The Ravens have hired Steve Spagnuolo as a senior defensive assistant.

Spagnuolo said himself “The obvious attraction was John and our relationship.  The one thing you learn in this business is you want to, whenever you can, be associated with character organizations.”

“I love being back working with John; it’s been a long time,” Spagnuolo also said. “In the eight years we were together, we had a lot of talks – a lot of good talks – about everything. That’s what I love and respect about him. I know how he sees things.”

As of right now, Spagnuolo’s role with the Ravens as a senior defensive assistant is unknown even to him.

Harbaugh said “His wealth of NFL coaching experience speaks for itself and he’ll help us across the board.”  This leads me to believe he will have a variety of responsibilities with the Ravens and will provide general help.

Throughout his career, Spagnuolo has run 4-3 defenses so it is an interesting hire because he has no experience with the 3-4 defense that the Ravens run.  However, the Ravens many hybrid looks so this probably won’t be anything close to a problem.

Look for Spagnuolo to try and turn this one year job into a defensive coordinator position somewhere next season.  He had lots of success with the Giants defense and created the gameplan that stopped the record-setting offense of the undefeated Patriots team in Super Bowl XLII.

This is a good signing for the Ravens as it never hurts to add experienced coaches to your staff.  Spagnuolo has been around the league for a while and has had success before.  Plus, he is friends with head coach John Harbaugh so he should fit in with the Ravens.