Posted July 5th, 2026 | No Comments »Yesterday I wrote about Vic Fangio and his scheme. Fangio likes to be creative with his coverages and pass rush plans. That requires the right kind of players. Hybrid players, to be specific.
Think about the team’s DBs.
Cooper DeJean – Can play the slot, outside corner or safety. Excels in the slot, but has the versatility to play anywhere.
Quinyon Mitchell – Outside corner. Has played both sides. Has traveled with receivers when matchups called for it.
Drew Mukuba – Played both the slot and safety in college. Has focused on safety in the NFL, but can handle either role.
Jonathan Jones – Backup CB who has experience playing in the slot and outside.
Michael Carter – Has a lot of experience at slot. Eagles are mixing him in at safety this season.
Mac McWilliams – Practiced in the slot and outside as a rookie.
Cole Wisniewski – Has LB size and safety skills.
Kapena Gushiken – UDFA rookie who played nickel and safety in college.
All of that versatility isn’t an accident. Fangio has told the Personnel Dept what he’s looking for and they go get the right players for him. Different sizes and skill sets allows Fangio to be as creative as he wants on the back end.
The front seven also has versatile players. LBs Zack Baun and Jihaad Campbell both have experience playing edge rusher as well as linebacker. They can blitz, cover, play the run or rush the passer.
Edge rushers Jalyx Hunt and Nolan Smith are gifted athletes who can rush or drop into coverage. Technically anyone can drop back, but Hunt and Smith have the skills to actually do it well. Hunt had 3 INTs last year, showing just how talented he is.
That kind of coverage isn’t normal for an edge rusher. Hunt is a valuable player for Fangio because of that.
Having versatile players allows Fangio to do unusual things. Doing the unexpected can confuse QBs and throw off their reads, at least slowing them down.
That kind of creativity can be invaluable when facing good QBs. Anything you can do to slow them down can make a difference. Those creative coverages make the Eagles a really tough team to throw against.
When you have the right players and the right play-caller, you can create havoc on defense. Fangio has been doing that for years. With all the versatile talent Howie Roseman has given him, it should continue into this season and the future.
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I was reading an old football book when I stumbled across an interesting nugget. Back in 1977 the Eagles had traded away a lot of draft picks for veteran players. The team’s first pick was in the fifth round. Howie Roseman’s head would explode if he had to wait that long to make a pick. Crazy.
The Eagles still managed to come up with NT Charlie Johnson and some undersized RB named Wilbert Montgomery. Not bad considering the long wait.
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Posted July 4th, 2026 | 1 Comment »The Eagles have run a version of the Vic Fangio scheme since Nick Sirianni took over as coach of the Eagles. It wasn’t until 2024 that they were able to hire Fangio himself that anyone knew how good he and the scheme are. Having the playbook is one thing. Knowing how to teach it and call defenses during the game is quite another. That’s what makes Fangio special.
Fangio has coached in the NFL since 1986. He’s been a LBs coach, defensive coordinator and head coach. Some coaches struggle to evolve with the new trends in football, but that isn’t the case with Fangio. He came in as the 3-4 was taking over the league, saw the rise of the zone blitz and came up with his own theory on the light box in recent years. Fangio might be old, but his scheme stays young. Secondary coach Joe Kasper explains part of that.
“We try new things,” Kasper said. “We try things, we study other teams. I mean, we’re here a lot. We look at copious amounts of film, and we try and decide what marries best to what other teams do. Can we steal something from somebody else? Do we understand what they’re doing? Can we pick and choose where it can help us?
“You try things, and you see what works, and you see what doesn’t work. And you try things in the training camp. You try things in this team. and you try and compliment your guys and see, you know, is this something we love and we can lean on? And we have our staples, you know, and our bread and butter that we hang our hat on.”
Good coaches are thieves, stealing ideas from anyone and everyone. We see NFL teams borrowing from the college game, where coaches like to steal from the high school game. There is more experimentation as you go down a level and that leads to some interesting concepts. The best ones move up the ladder.
Doug Farrar wrote a great piece on the defenses used by the last two Super Bowl champs and the things they have in common. I recommend reading this to get a good understanding of what defenses are trying to do now to shutdown offenses. Here is what Doug said about the Eagles.
In their 40-22 win over the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX, the Eagles refused to blitz Patrick Mahomes. They didn’t blitz a single time in their 56 defensive snaps, but they still disrupted Mahomes to the tune of six sacks and 30 total pressures. Instead of sending extra pass-rushers at Mahomes, the Eagles stunted their defensive linemen to an extreme degree, and it worked to great effect. Philly stunted its linemen 11 times in the game — two of their sacks and five of their pressures came as a result.
This also aligns with recent NFL trends.
The Eagles kept four defenders at the line of scrimmage on every snap (there were a handful of snaps in which linebacker Zack Baun did rush the passer, but always with a defensive lineman dropping back into coverage); they also had six or fewer defenders in the box on 52 of those 56 snaps. And they played with two-deep safeties on 36 of 56 plays.
Both Seattle and Philly focused on coverage. The Seahawks played mostly dime defense, while the Eagles were mostly nickel, but the overall idea was the same. Stop the passing game and try to limit the run game. Both teams had the right personnel to pull this off, based on talent and versatility. Seattle coach Mike Macdonald is 39. Vic Fangio has been part of the NFL since before he was born. That should give you some appreciation for Fangio’s ability to adapt with the game.
While Fangio didn’t blitz in the Super Bowl, he did blitz Mahomes when the teams met in the 2025 regular season.
You want each gameplan to be different. There isn’t one magic scheme that works all the time. You have to mix things up. While Fangio focuses on coverage, he isn’t afraid to attack. Part of that is due to his background.
Fangio has had good teachers. He worked under Steve Sidwell in New Orleans. Sidwell ran the 3-4 and helped the Saints have one of the best defenses in the league in his tenure. Dom Capers was also part of that staff. Capers left for Pittsburgh, where he ran the defense and really developed the zone blitz. Capers then became the head coach of the Panthers and later the Texans. Fangio was his DC in both spots. Fangio learned the zone blitz from a true expert. Later on Fangio became the LBs coach for the Ravens and DC Rex Ryan. Fangio learned about overload blitzes and complex coverages from Ryan. Fangio has been able to take all of these ideas and use them to develop his own scheme.
One of the keys to his success is being able to explain role to all of his players so they are on the same page and can function as a unit rather than a bunch of individuals.
“I think Vic [Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio] does a good job of telling us where our help is and what leverage we should play,” Baun said. “We’ve always got help. When I’m out there, I trust my own tackling ability, but I also trust that Coop [defensive back Cooper DeJean] is going to come down and make the tackle with me, or Oren [linebacker Oren Burks] is going to come down and make the tackle with me.”
The Eagles use some complex coverages. They couldn’t do that successfully unless the players understood what was going on in great detail. Good communication is essential, between Fangio and his guys as well as between the players themselves.
Fangio is old school. He is a tough, demanding coach. That’s true for his assistants and his players. Kasper explains that.
“Vic is an amazing teacher and coach of coaches, not just of players,” Kasper said last week. “I think everybody realizes how great he is as for the players and what he does schematically for us as an organization.
“But just for the coaches to sit in there every day in his process is really unique. And for me, it was like, ‘Man, I can’t wait to learn from this guy. I can’t wait to be a part of his system. Can’t wait to be a part of his process,’ like the day-to-day and week-to-week operations of what gives us advantages and what disadvantages or what kind of weaknesses do we want to avoid.
“He’s hard on players and he’s hard on coaches, but it comes from a place of wanting to, wanting to win, right? So if you’re about the right stuff, meaning your motivations and intentions are aligned with his, then you’ll be in good shape with him.”
Greatness doesn’t come easy. It requires hard work and some tough love. Fangio is tough on his guys, but will also praise them when they do well. He wants to play great defense and win, which has happened since he arrived in Philly.
This season should be more of the same.
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This is a crazy story.
“I’ll tell you one game because it’s probably down in history,” Capers said.
Capers is right.
In December 2002, the first-year Texans (3-9) were a 14-point underdog at Pittsburgh (7-4-1). The Texans were outgained 422-47 … and won 24-6.
It remains the fewest yards for a winning team in NFL history. The Texans had four first downs, only the 13th time in NFL history that the winning team had four or fewer first downs.
Fangio’s defense scored three touchdowns — a 40-yard fumble return by Kenny Wright and Aaron Glenn interception returns of 70 and 65 yards.
“They scored 24 points and I gave them 21 of them,” Steelers quarterback Tommy Maddox said after the game. “You can put it on my shoulders. I will take the heat.”
The Texans also had six sacks.
That is nuts. I do not remember the game at all.
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Happy July 4th everyone!
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