Good News For Sunday: Every Time Vic Fangio Has Been Involved With A Philadelphia Team, They've Gone On To The Championship
Mitchell Leff. Getty Images.Vic Fangio might just be the key to this whole thing.
You look back at last year's Eagles defense and compare them to this year's. Obviously a few things that automatically stand out are going to be personnel differences.
Zack Baun is great. He's an incredible story, and seems to be a guy who is willing to do anything and everything his team needs of him. He's a great story of selflessness, resilience, and how progress isn't always linear. He's now one of the 5 finalists for the Defensive Player of the Year.
Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean are great. They're young, they're energetic, they play with a level of confidence that is beyond their years. They're both finalists for the Defensive Rookie of the Year.
Those guys have made a massive impact, but I don't know if you can sit there right now and say that they'd all be just as great right now if they were in any other situation. They are great because this Eagles defense, as a collective unit, is great. And this collective unit is great because Vic Fangio has unlocked that greatness.
That's obviously the biggest difference from last year's Eagles defense to this year. You went from Sean Desai and Matt Patricia running the show, to having one of the greatest defensive minds in football taking over. And not just any ordinary great defensive mind in football. But a guy who has literally played for a title every time he's been involved with an organization in Philly.
He was a defensive assistant with the Philadelphia Stars in 1984. The Stars won the USFL Championship that year. He was a defensive consultant with the Eagles in 2022. The Eagles won the NFC Championship, and then lost to the Chiefs in the Super Bowl.
He left last year to be the defensive coordinator in Miami, and the Eagles' defense went to shit. Now he's back in Philly as the defensive coordinator here and the Eagles are just one win away from playing for another Super Bowl. They have the #1 defense in football, and Vic Fangio is one of the five finalist for the Assistant Coach of the Year. He's never had a year in Philadelphia that didn't come down to the final game of the season, and all he has to do to keep that streak alive is absolutely torment a rookie quarterback for 4 quarters on Sunday afternoon.
Also, let's just take a moment to be eternally grateful for living in a world where Howie Roseman exists. The Eagles suffered one of the most historic collapses in NFL history last season. So what did he go out and do this past offseason? He hired Vic Fangio to be the new DC. He signed Saquon Barkley and Zack Baun in free agency. He drafted Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean. All 5 of them are now up for major awards this year, and have put the Eagles in the position they're in right now.
I'm sure I've said plenty of things I regret about Howie Roseman right now. But I'll never utter a bad word about this man for the rest of my days.
Go Birds.