Eagles hire Vic Fangio as new Defensive Coordinator

The Philadelphia Eagles have now confirmed that they are hiring Vic Fangio to be their new defensive coordinator. 

Eagles hire Vic Fangio as new Defensive Coordinator

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— Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) January 27, 2024

Vic Fangio is Eagles’ top target for defensive coordinator after his departure from Miami >>

After years of trusting disciples of the Fangio-Quarter system, the Eagles apparently decided that getting the creator of the entire scheme would be better.

Fangio, 65, is a Pennsylvania native hailing from Dunsmore PA, roughly two hours outside of Philly. 

He worked with the Eagles as a defensive consultant through parts of 2021 and all of the 2022 season. The team wanted to promote him to defensive coordinator following the departure of Jonathan Gannon, but unfortunately, Miami swooped in and snatched him before Philly had a chance.

The Eagles have been trying to replicate the Vic Fangio defense for years now. Gannon came from the Fangio tree, as did Sean Desai. Obviously, neither of them were truly capable of duplicating Fangio’s scheme to a tee. It’s no coincidence that the best defensive season under Nick Sirianni was the year Fangio was in the building full time.

Look we all know how shit the Eagles’ defense was last season, especially down the stretch when they lost six out of their final seven games, marking one of the worst collapses in NFL history. 

The good news is, Fangio is legitimately one of the smartest defensive minds in football today. Just because the Eagles defense played like shit under Desai and at times under Gannon, that doesn’t necessarily mean the scheme is broken. More than likely, it just means Desai and Gannon weren’t savvy enough to truly run it effectively.

Will Fangio come in and fix the defensive problems that plagued the Eagles? Probably not.

He’s going to need a shit load of players and a personnel overhaul to make that happen, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction. It will be very interesting to see how Howie Roseman starts building on that side of the football.

With the pedigree of Fangio, I have to imagine he’ll have some sort of say in the types of players he’ll be coaching. Keep an eye on some of the pending defensive free agents from Miami – who all played some of their best football under Fangio in 2023:

• LB Jerome Baker
• OLB Andrew Van Ginkel
• S DeShon Elliott
• S Brandon Jones

The Athletic: “Vic Fangio, the most influential DC in modern NFL: A deep dive into his system”

In an interview with ESPN prior to the 2019 season, Sean McVay, Kyle Shanahan and Matt LaFleur were all asked which coach’s defense is the most difficult to read and attack. All three highly successful play callers answered: Vic Fangio, the defensive coordinator of the Bears from 2015-18, and first-year coach with the Broncos in 2019.

I’m not going to pretend to be able to break down a defensive scheme like you see other websites do across social media but checking out this CBS Sports article and Fangio’s preferred defense, it looks like we’re going back to a more traditional model that matches more of a Jonathan Gannon approach that we saw in 2022. 

Vic Fangio as new defensive coordinator: How the change could affect Philadelphia in 2024 >>

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