‘Dudes were just killing each other’ — How Fangio is using vintage NFL film to transform Eagles’ defense

‘Dudes were just killing each other’ — How Fangio is using vintage NFL film to transform Eagles’ defense originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

Vic Fangio loves showing his defensive guys videos of old-time football stars playing the game the right way.

And maybe the wrong way, too.

When you hear people talk about how Fangio is “old school,” it’s really true. Fangio coached Sam Mills and Pat Swilling with the Saints, NaVorro Bowman and Patrick Willis with the 49ers, Ed Reed and Ray Lewis with the Ravens.

Those are all guys who played a certain brand of football, a brand that Fangio wants the 2024 Eagles to play.

That means going hard to whistle. And then maybe a little longer.

“Man, how they was hitting, I love that,” Nolan Smith said after practice Wednesday, his eyes bulging as he discussed the vintage videos Fangio likes to show his players.

“I’d love to be able to just go lay the quarterback out, man, clothesline him when he come through that B gap on that up-pocket escape. You’ve seen all type of bleep back then. It was crazy, and I love it. You know, they played real football. I tell them boys, ‘Nah, we play pitty-pat football.’ We even got these little things on our helmets now that don’t do nothing, really. I feel like that way.

“But, man, them boys was hitting back then. Come across that middle? It’s a lot of guys on shallow routes and stuff right now. But back then? If you were in a shallow route? You had some (guts) to you. So, man, that’s what I see. That’s just real football, and it’s just amazing.”

Fangio, the Eagles’ fourth defensive coordinator in four years under Nick Sirianni, has been installing a new defense in his first year with the Eagles but also instilling a new attitude.

He doesn’t want a defense that gets called for a million personal foul penalties, but he does want a unit that channels some of that old-time edge.

A defense Andre Waters would be proud of.

“He always brings up the good old days, (how) they practiced two-a-days and all this and that,” Reed Blankenship said. “And he’s right, it seems like we don’t practice enough now, but he’s always talking about being physical and showing us clips and stuff. …

“He’ll show us the Ravens clips, Ray Lewis and them just smacking people and all this. But you know he’ll show the almost-illegal hits and sometimes illegal hits back in the day. But it’s just football. That’s what it’s built on.”

Can the Eagles be a defense that adopts the toughness and physicality of those legendary old-time defenses while still being smart and disciplined and avoiding penalties in a modern NFL landscape where everything is geared toward high-flying offenses?

That’s not easy.

But that’s clearly the mentality Fangio is trying to instill in his young defense.

“He showed some clips from way back in the day when there was like no targeting (penalty), they still had the single-bar facemasks, where dudes were just killing each other,” rookie Cooper DeJean said.

“It almost looked like no rules out there. He was just trying to teach us how to play physical as a defense. That’s something we want to be good at, being physical.”

Fangio, who got his pro coaching start with Jim Mora and the Philadelphia Stars of the old USFL, coached linebackers under both Brian Billick and John Harbaugh, and three of his four years in Baltimore the Ravens were ranked in the top three in the NFL in defense.

Those teams were loaded with defensive stars – Reed, Terrell Suggs, one-time Eagle Haloti Ngata, Adalius Thomas, Chris McAlister – but Lewis, a seven-time all-pro and 2018 Hall of Famer, epitomizes what Fangio values in a defensive player.

Ferocious, disciplined, relentless, smart.

Needless to say, Lewis is the star of a lot of Fangio’s videos.

“Man, I was always a big Ray Lewis fan, and Ray Lewis is amazing,” Smith said. “And I just love the way he played the game, and I try to play the game that same way.”

This is a very different defense from last year – new coaches, new players, new approach. And if Fangio has his way, a different result.

“He’s an old-school guy, so if you get a fine on a hard hit?” Smith said. “He’ll take that one for you.”