So far, Eagles taking to Vic Fangio’s old-school coaching style

There are a lot of ways to describe longtime NFL defensive coordinator Vic Fangio and his coaching style.

But Jordan Davis explained it succinctly.

“No bulls—,” Davis said. “There’s no bulls—. Hope y’all can bleep that out. But there’s really no BS. It’s straight ball.”

Fangio, 65, has been doing this a long time. A really long time. Fangio first became a defensive coordinator in the NFL in 1995 — just four of his defensive players on the 2024 Eagles were even alive back then.

All that is to say that Fangio is an old-school guy from his on-field fits to his views on practice. And that seemed to rub some players the wrong way during his short year-long stint in Miami before he took the vacant DC job in Philly this spring.

While Fangio earlier this month shrugged off a question about not getting along with Dolphins players last year, there have been plenty of reports and examples to illustrate that Fangio in Miami wasn’t a good fit.

Heck, just last week, second-year cornerback Cam Smith said, “I feel like I’m free” after the departure of Fangio. Smith barely played on defense in his rookie year as a second-round pick. 

And then there was Miami safety Jevon Holland’s explanation for the difference between Fangio and new DC Anthony Weaver. “It’s the fact that he’s a good person that makes a difference,” Holland said to NFL Network’s Cameron Wolfe.

It seemed like it was just an awkward marriage between Fangio and the Dolphins.

But through May this year … so far, so good with the Eagles.

“I love Vic, man,” second-year defensive tackle Jalen Carter said. “Old school. He’s fun to talk to. He’s a good coach.”

The former Georgia players on the Eagles’ defense — and there are a lot of them — have talked about Kirby Smart’s no-nonsense approach in Athens. So they’re all used to it.

“I love it,” Nolan smith said. “I come from coaches like that.”

Carter definitely appreciates Fangio’s style.

“I think I’m just all about old school football,” Carter said. “If you know Apopka High School, where I’m from, the city of Apopka (Florida). Our culture is old school with everything we did with running stadiums and stuff like that. It’s always been old school, hard work. I’m ready to be coached any kind of way — old school, new school, whatever you want to call it.”

Of course, we’re still months away from training camp and there are some pretty strict rules about on-field activities during voluntary practices. We’ll see if everyone is still on board by the time training camp gets going in late July.

But for now, the Eagles seem to like Fangio. At least, they appear willing to be coached by him.

“It’s going to be great, man,” defensive captain Darius Slay said. “If you’ve been looking, our team is built on leadership and guys that’s always willing to go out with the other guys. So I think he’s a guy that’s just going to build the team up, come here with great energy. He’s a guy that’s been in the room with a lot of great vets. 

“You’ve got a team full of vets that been with a lot of coaches and I think not one time has somebody had something bad or negative to say about a DC because we always go hard for him. It doesn’t matter who it is. Because we want to win.”

The Eagles have a new scheme this season under Fangio but they had already been using Fangio staples under Jonathan Gannon and Sean Desai in recent seasons. So there will be a learning curve, but it’s not like everything will look different under Fangio.

And, ultimately, players just want a coach who makes them better and helps them win.

If Fangio can do that, all the other stuff won’t matter as much.

“I’m sure you heard that all the time: He’s old school,” Davis said. “So he don’t give a damn. We running, he expects us, everybody that’s on the field, he expects us to be on the field for as long as we can. We just know that he wants us to be out there. And if you’re going to be a player, you’re going to be a dude, you want to be out there and you want to play.”

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