Who is Vic Fangio? Meet the Philadelphia Eagles' new defensive coordinator
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The Philadelphia Eagles had a disastrous end to the 2023 season. They lost six of their final seven games in an all-time collapse, including the loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the wild card round of the playoffs.
The poor play led to changes on Philadelphia's coaching staff, even though head coach Nick Sirianni will be back for the 2024 season. Offensive and defensive coordinators Brian Johnson and Sean Desai are gone, and so is senior defensive assistant Matt Patricia, who started calling defensive plays later in the season.
The Eagles filled their defensive coordinator vacancy on Saturday by hiring Vic Fangio after he mutually parted ways with the Miami Dolphins.
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But who is Fangio? Where has he coached before? Does he have ties to Philadelphia?
Here's everything you need to know about the Eagles new defensive coordinator.
Has Fangio worked for the Eagles before?
Fangio hasn't technically been a coach for the Eagles before, but he helped the team prepare for Super Bowl LVII against the Kansas City Chiefs as a consultant while he was out of a job in 2023. He was spotted at Eagles training camp practices before the 2022 season.
Fangio might've been the Eagles defensive coordinator for the 2023 season if he had not already committed to the Dolphins job right before former Eagles defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon became the head coach of the Arizona Cardinals.
Where is Fangio from?
Fangio is a native of Dunmore, Pennsylvania, which is just outside Scranton and roughly two hours from Philadelphia.
Fangio played safety at Dunmore High School and went to college at East Stroudsburg University. He graduated from ESU in 1980 but didn't play football in college.
Fangio is also a die-hard Philadelphia Phillies fan, and now he'll be working across the street from Citizens Bank Park with the chance to catch plenty of games.
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"I still don't go to sleep at night until I know whether the Phillies won or lost," he told a writer from The Athletic in 2017. "Even if they're on the West Coast."
Where has Fangio coached?
Fangio has coached at all different levels. He's coached football at high school, college, the United States Football League and the NFL.
Most recently, Fangio was the defensive coordinator for the Dolphins. He was out of coaching for the 2022 season while he worked for the Eagles briefly as a consultant.
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Before that, Fangio was the head coach of the Denver Broncos from 2019-21, but the two parted ways following an ugly end to the 2021 season where the team went 4-10 after starting the season 3-0.
Fangio has held defensive coordinator jobs with the Chicago Bears, San Francisco 49ers, Stanford University, Houston Texans, Indianapolis Colts, Carolina Panthers, and linebackers coach jobs with the Baltimore Ravens and New Orleans Saints.
What type of defense does Fangio run?
Fangio's defensive scheme has become one of the most popular schemes across the NFL over the past several years.
Plenty of teams across the league have hired a coach from his coaching tree to call their defense.
Desai, who the Eagles recently fired as their defensive coordinator, is considered a disciple of Fangio.
Fangio's defense usually has a two high safety look with light boxes. It also doesn't blitz a lot, but Fangio is known for his ability to disguise coverages and pressures with the same look, according to Shawn Syed of Sumer Sports, who wrote "The Book of Fangio."
Fangio's base defense usually has three defensive linemen, four linebackers and four defensive backs.
"You can't write the history of the past five or six years of NFL defenses without Vic Fangio," Syed told CBS Philadelphia's Pat Gallen in a recent interview.
