Vic Fangio could be Eagles' X-factor in Super Bowl LIX originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
NEW ORLEANS — Matt Nagy still vividly remembers what it was like walking into Vic Fangio’s office at Halas Hall on a Monday.
“He’d have a stack of papers that thick,” said Nagy, holding his thumb and index finger a few inches apart. “And he’d just be flipping through with a pencil just marking tendency breakers.
“Just on a whole Monday, he’s just working through how he sees an opponent, how he wants to break them down. It’s all to himself.”
These days, Nagy is back with the Kanas City Chiefs as their offensive coordinator under Andy Reid. But in 2018, he left that post for a four-year run as the Chicago Bears head coach. He was lucky enough to retain Fangio as defensive coordinator for his first season at the helm before Fangio left for a head coaching opportunity of his own.
Even though they spent just one season together in Chicago, Nagy knows as well as anyone involved in Super Bowl LIX just how much of an X-factor the Eagles’ veteran defensive coordinator can be on Sunday.
“His experience, No.1. Super smart,” Nagy said. “So you’ve got experience, you’ve got a guy that’s smart and then you got a guy that demands greatness from his players. So there’s an instant respect factor from his players. Whatever he’s saying to them, they respect and they trust. You put all that together and it makes them go.”
In their only season together, the Bears went 12-4 and won the NFC North before losing to the Eagles in the double-doink game in the playoffs. Fangio was named the Assistant Coach of the Year after having the No. 1 scoring defense and the No. 3 overall defense in the NFL that season. It was a season that got Fangio hired as the Broncos’ head coach.
That was arguably Fangio’s best defense … until this year.
In his first year with the Eagles, Fangio transformed a bunch of young and new pieces into a cohesive unit that should put up a heck of a fight against Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs in the Super Bowl.
In the last couple of weeks, plenty of people have brought up Mahomes’ 8-0 record against Fangio but that’s a tad misleading. That stat isn’t untrue but it lacks context. In those eight games, the offense facing the Chiefs averaged just 11.9 points and half of those games were quarterbacked by Drew Lock.
In fact, Mahomes passer rating in those eight games was 95.9 — lower than his career rating of 102.1. And it’s also worth noting that this Eagles defense is way better than the defenses Fangio had in Denver or in Miami.
“Every time I’ve played Coach Fangio, there’s been different changeups and different things that he’s thrown at us,” Mahomes said this week. “I think that’s what makes us so great. He’s not going to just do what you saw the last time. I’m sure there will be blitzes in the game, times where they play coverage.
“It’s going to be a chess match. You want to go up against the best and he’s one of the best defensive coordinators in the NFL. It’ll be a great challenge for us as an offense and as a football team.”
Nagy said he always wanted to work with Fangio but didn’t really know him until they worked together. Even then, he said it took him about three months to understand Fangio’s “unique” personality.
And Nagy still remembers sitting down with Fangio late in the 2018 season to figure out whether or not his defensive coordinator was going to take the Broncos’ head coaching job.
“I really got to learn who he was and have a lot of respect for him, not just as a coach, because he is a great coach, but as a person as well,” Nagy said. “That was really, really important. It took me a while to learn that.”
Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni had at least worked with Fangio briefly before this season. In 2022, Fangio was a consultant with the Eagles during their playoff run, mostly helping the offense with a defensive point-of-view. Fangio would have been the Eagles’ DC last year but the timing didn’t work out.
After a disaster on defense with a coordinator switch halfway through the 2023 season, having a steady force like Fangio leading that side of the ball has been a major boost for the Eagles in 2024.
“He’s got great experience,” Sirianni said on Wednesday. “When you talk about coaches, sometimes you’re like, ‘He’s been a good coach for years.’ He’s been a good coach for decades, which is impressive. He’s had an unbelievable career and done so many good things. Just so grateful that he’s on this staff.
“He has a standard of how it’s supposed to look at holds the guys to that standard. And he’s not afraid to tell you what he thinks if you don’t meet the standard and praise you if you do meet the standard.”
The Eagles statistically had a very good defense going into Super Bowl LVII against Mahomes and the Chiefs a couple years ago, but that defense wasn’t as battle-tested. This year’s version of the Eagles’ defense has already beaten Jayden Daniels, Matthew Stafford, Lamar Jackson, Jordan Love and Joe Burrow.
And after a second-half collapse in the last Super Bowl, it’s worth noting that Fangio has been fantastic this season at adjusting during games.
We’ll find out on Sunday if that stack of papers on his desk really gives the Eagles an edge.
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