He was indeed saddled with the sandbags known as Vitt and Bill Johnson, but Spagnuolo did bring in Ken Flajole as the secondary coach with him (Flajole was the DC during Spagnuolo’s HC tenure in St. Louis and his current OLB’s coach in Kansas City) so he did have one of his guys to help teach his difficult scheme.
As a result, the 2012 Saints defense was ranked at the bottom in nearly every passing category and Flajole’s secondary was a large reason for that.
As others have noted, including Chiefs players themselves, that they have input into the defense based on their strengths and weaknesses; have you seen ANY Saints player on that 2012 team say anything like that regarding Spags’ defense? Spagnuolo just refused to adjust his system to the players and ended up being the scapegoat as a result.
Ryan took the same nucleus of players Spags had and turned them into a top-5 unit with only the additions of Lewis, Vaccaro, and Parys Haralson. Lewis likely being the key acquisition but it levels out considering Greer missed half the season after breaking his leg and had Corey White starting at the other CB position. While Spagnuolo had Hicks and Galette riding the bench in 2012 playing very limited snaps, they tripled their sack total the following year in Ryan’s defense. If Ryan of all coaches could see their potential, how didn’t Spags?
If he was set up to fail that year, it was because Payton wasn’t allowed to be in the building more than the just players he inherited, his scheme, or anything else.