Three cheers for Vic Fangio, the oldie but goodie in charge of a great Eagles defense
This year’s Eagles are more than capable of getting back to the Super Bowl and winning it. If they do, they can thank Fangio and his defense.
Vic Fangio was already the NFL’s oldest defensive coordinator last season with the Miami Dolphins, when he was 65 and apparently too tough on a group of not-so-hard-charging dudes who apparently preferred to hang at South Beach instead of in the film room.
The Dolphins finished 10th in total defense and 22nd in points allowed, a big blah for a team quickly bounced from the playoffs, and the displeasure that several Miami players felt toward Fangio and his methods didn’t leak out of their locker room — it gushed. The situation was the most tiresome cliche about coach-player relationships come to life: the grizzled overseer who maybe couldn’t connect with today’s athletes, the coddled twentysomethings who maybe couldn’t accept or maybe didn’t really care that their coach knew best, Boomer vs. Zoomers, two generations enter, both generations leave after losing to Patrick Mahomes.
Fangio and the Dolphins “parted ways” not long after the season — parted ways being the NFL term for, Look, Coach, you probably don’t want to be here anymore, and we really don’t want you here anymore. The Eagles waited 18 seconds, give or take, to hire him, and, suffice to say, there are reasons that the Dolphins haven’t won a Super Bowl in 51 years. Fangio turned 66 in August and remains the OG among the league’s DCs. And the only conclusion to draw, based on how the Eagles’ defense has fared under him this season, is that Fangio refused to give his routing number to the Social Security Administration, then ate his AARP card.
Around here, whenever anyone discusses the best defenses in Eagles history, the standard for a long time has been Bud Carson’s 1991 unit: Reggie White, Jerome Brown, Seth Joyner, Clyde Simmons, Eric Allen, Wes Hopkins, Andre Waters, the residue of Buddy Ryan’s 46 scheme, the “House of Pain” game against the Houston Oilers. That group led the NFL in total defense, passing defense, rushing defense, sacks, and turnovers; was fifth in points allowed; and allowed an Eagles team that lost Randall Cunningham in Week 1 and used Jim McMahon, Pat Ryan, Jeff Kemp, and Brad Goebel at quarterback to win 10 games.
One could make a decent case that Fangio’s defense has come closer to reaching the standard of that ’91 D than any Eagles team since — and that Fangio had a harder task than Carson, for all his brilliance, did. The Eagles this season rank first in total defense, second in points allowed, first in yards per play, first in passing yards allowed, first in passing yards per attempt, and sixth in turnovers.
They’ve accomplished all that while starting, for most of the season, two rookie defensive backs (Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean), a Pro Bowl middle linebacker who had never been a middle linebacker before Fangio turned him into one (Zack Baun), and several young players who were question marks to one degree or another entering the season (Jalen Carter, Jordan Davis, Nakobe Dean, Nolan Smith). This Eagles defense has neither the talent nor the continuity that the ’91 defense had. Fangio has done more with less, relatively speaking, than Ryan or Carson.
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“It’s a good honor for the players,” Fangio said Tuesday, when asked for his reaction to the Eagles’ having the NFL’s top-ranked defense. “They’re the ones who did the work. They deserve it. … You don’t put limits on players. If you put limits on them, you’ll get limited production. Take them to the ceiling they can go to.”
It’s a greater honor for Fangio, who validated the belief of the Eagles’ leadership core that the team didn’t need another up-and-coming coordinator but a coach who was wise, who was experienced, and who had seen some things. You have to go deep into Eagles history to find the best parallels for Fangio’s hiring. Andy Reid’s decision to bring on Jim Johnson in 1999 comes to mind, but Johnson was just 57 at the time, a kid compared to Fangio. Perhaps the better comparison is Sid Gillman, who joined Dick Vermeil’s staff in 1979 as a special assistant in charge of quality control and quarterbacks — the closest thing Vermeil had to an offensive coordinator. Gillman was 67. In July 1979, while the Eagles were in the midst of training camp, he underwent sextuple bypass surgery, then showed up at camp a month later in a Rolls Royce provided by owner Leonard Tose and driven by Tose’s chauffeur.
The Eagles reached their first Super Bowl, in New Orleans, the following season. This year’s Eagles are more than capable of getting back to the Big Easy on Feb. 9 and winning once they’re there. If they do, they can thank Fangio and his defense, and they can credit themselves for going old school in all the right ways.