Eagles News: Vic Fangio’s defense compared to Jonathan Gannon & Sean Desai

The Eagles hired former Dolphins defensive coordinator Vic Fangio to the same role a few weeks ago. It’s a well known fact the Eagles have been trying to replicate his scheme with some of his understudies. Both Jonathan Gannon (2021-2022) and Sean Desai (2023) were brought here to implement a similar version of Fangio’s age-old defense. 

The Eagles have certainly seen a mixed bag of results when it comes to these understudies.

Jonathan Gannon’s unit had a really good 2022 season, but ultimately failed to stop an injured Patrick Mahomes on the biggest stage. However, good quarterbacks seemingly always had their way with Gannon and the Eagles during his time here. You can make the case the Eagles 2022 defensive numbers are heavily inflated due to the lack of competition they faced.

Gannon, who’s currently the head coach of the Arizona Cardinals, lead a defense that ranked 31st in points allowed per game in 2023. It should be noted the Cardinals defense is *significantly* less talented than what Gannon worked with in Philadelphia. 

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After Gannon left for Arizona, the Eagles turned to former Bears defensive coordinator Sean Desai. But, that wasn’t exactly a smooth process. Remember when the Eagles and Cardinals made a very weird trade just moments before the 2023 NFL Draft kicked off? The Eagles moved up in the 3rd round from no. 94 to no. 66 by only giving up a 2024 5th-round pick. 

That trade happened as a settlement to a tampering case regarding Gannon’s process to become the Cardinals head coach. The Eagles felt blindsided as Gannon reportedly didn’t report his call with Arizona to Philadelphia until the Friday before Super Bowl LVII, 10 days after the call took place. 

Why’s that significant? The Eagles, unaware of Gannon’s communication with Arizona, let Vic Fangio go be the Dolphins defensive coordinator. Fangio was the Eagles’ top choice, should Gannon have left. So, had Gannon not tampered, Fangio likely would’ve been in Philadelphia last season. 

The Sean Desai Experience

Backtracking to Sean Desai, he had a very wild season in Philadelphia.

Before being “demoted” before the team’s Week 15 game against the Seahawks, Desai had gone through some ups and downs. There were times where his unit excelled. They shut down the Dolphins’ high flying offense and held Patrick Mahomes to 17 points. But, the team’s immense struggles against the 49ers and Cowboys right before Matt Patricia was named the play caller, led to Desai’s ultimate downfall.

Desai is currently without a job. However, I don’t expect that to last long. Sources told The Liberty Line that Desai has had serious interest expressed to him around the league and is expected to coach in 2024. 

Comparing the current Eagles defense under Fangio to past iterations

Now that we have that covered, we can talk about Fangio. I spoke to multiple sources on Fangio and asked them to provide some insight on what exactly he’ll bring to Philly that’s different from Gannon and Desai. Fangio runs a 3-4 defense, but it’s been explained to me that it’s more of a “title” front base. The intent of the scheme is to preach leverage to all levels. It’s commonly asked of defensive backs to maintain leverage of areas on the field, but Fangio truly preaches it to all players. 

The Fangio defense will almost always show a two high safety look with a light box. He won’t blitz much at all, but one source said his ability to disguise coverages is something he excels at. 

A need for Fangio’s defense is fast and athletic linebackers that can cover. The Eagles have, *checks notes*, not one of those at the moment. Now, it’s a given they’ll add to the position this off-season. So, it’ll be very interesting to see what they do. 

In comparison to Jonathan Gannon’s true cover 4 scheme with very little post-snap rotation, Fangio runs a heavy cover 9 scheme that is reliant on post-snap rotation. It’s a similar structure with very different mechanics. 

As for Sean Desai, he based a lot of what he did last season similarly to what Fangio  had in Chicago. However, the mechanical deficiencies the Eagles showed in 2023 is ultimately what led to their downfall, a source explained, “If you don’t have sound rules and reads, you’re not going to function well.”

Overall, Fangio brings a more nuanced and post-snap reliant version of what the Eagles have run the past three seasons. Fangio is a very experienced coach who’ll bring great leadership qualities to Philadelphia. They’ll finally have the mind behind what they’ve been trying to replicate for years. That’s something they evidently lacked in 2023.