MIAMI – The NFL hiring cycle was winding down, and Steve Spagnuolo was sitting home in Philadelphia. It was January 2019, the Super Bowl was 11 or 12 days away, and his year off was almost officially over. He still didn’t know what he’d do after a couple opportunities he’d lined up failed to manifest.
Then the text came in.
“Are you still a free agent?”
Andy Reid tacked on a smiley-face emoji for good measure. And as the Chiefs coach hit send, little did either guy know that 12 months later, they’d be here, having finally followed through on a 15-year-old plan, one that wound up helping to lift a storied franchise back to the NFL’s biggest stage for the first time in half a century, which was enough make at least one of the two believe that a divine twist of fate put them here together.