PHILADELPHIA: After spending $5 million traveling to South Florida, it has taken a year, but friend of the program and Super Bowl LVII consultant Vic Fangio is now the defensive coordinator for the Philadelphia Eagles.
The so-called “Godfather of modern NFL defense” is unquestionably an improvement over the defensive experiences the Eagles had with Sean Desai, a protégé of Fangio, and the disastrous in-season switch to Matt Patricia last season.
The depth of the staff should also increase because Fangio has what is called to as the greatest “rolodex” in the NFL and the influence to get coordinators from 2023 like Mike Caldwell and Joe Barry to interview for positional coaching positions.
Ironically, a team source claims that the reason Desai won out last year over internal promotional contenders like Dennard Wilson and Nick Rallis was partly due to Fangio’s recommendation of Desai to Nick Sirianni and the coach’s desire to maintain the Fangio scheme as pure as possible in Philadelphia.
Fangio could have even wanted Desai on his staff right now if the situation hadn’t arisen, but that is not possible.
The Eagles actually have the real Fangio, not a Xerox copy, and that in and of itself should help with teaching the back seven’s communication plan, which may be a complex one.
At the age of sixty-five, Fangio began his coaching career in 1984 with the USFL’s Stars in Philadelphia, where he assisted in developing future Hall of Fame quarterback Sam Mills. More about defensive football than most of this month’s flavors of the month combined, he’s forgotten.
From 2011 to 2014, Fangio was San Francisco’s defensive coordinator, and his career took off when he was hired by Chicago as the DC.
Because they believed that Fangio’s schemes were the hardest to counter, a number of young offensive geniuses who went on to become head coaches, including Sirianni, Sean McVay, Matt LaFleur, Kevin O’Connell, and Mike McDaniel, wanted their defenses to run Fangio’s schemes.
Before the 2023 season began, Vic addressed the idea that every strategy has a certain shelf life and that the league is catching up to the Fangio model. Out of the aforementioned coaching group, McDaniel is ready to follow in the footsteps of McVay and KOC.
Fair enough, Fangio proved he could adjust, and he wasn’t following the crowd—rather, he was driving the pace car.
That implies by definition that Fangio could succeed once more. Fangio isn’t a miracle worker, though.
When it came to Fangio’s departure, the Dolphins weren’t exactly standing in his way, and some Miami defenders weren’t exactly planning moving farewell speeches for the occasion.
After the news broke, Dolphins safety Jevon Holland shared a video of himself kicking rocks, and cornerback Cam Smith tweeted an unlocked emoji.
The intriguing comparison made by Holland’s father reads, “Everyone loves the IPhone but nobody wants the #IPhone 1,” suggesting that transgressions have finally caught up to Fangio.
NFL agent Drew Rosenhaus stated, “There were quite a few players on the team that didn’t necessarily get along with Fangio.” As a result, relations with several of the players weren’t ideal. While there were many of guys who didn’t adore him, there were also plenty of guys who did. It was undoubtedly not a mutually beneficial relationship.
