May 10, 2024
Philadelphia Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio and offensive coordinator Kellen Moore spoke with the media for the first time since they were hired earlier this year. Here are my 12 takeaways.
"You've got to make due with what you got, but I keep pushing for more," he said.
Fangio was asked a follow-up on whether he pushed for more practice time this offseason before accepting the defensive coordinator position.
"I'll let Nick [Sirianni] answer that for you," he said.
#JimmySays: The Eagles are already scheduled to practice more this spring during OTAs and minicamp than they did last spring, and it is expected that training camp practices will be more demanding this year as well. (Also, the lighter practices were more of a directive from the front office than they were from Sirianni.)
"I wasn't here that often," Fangio said. "I really helped the offense. I'd say 95 percent of any of my contributions were to the offense and 5 percent to the defense. That's basically what I was doing, trying to give the offensive coaches a pre-look at the defense they're going against, what could possibly hurt them, what's their strengths, what's their weaknesses. Schematically, where they can be attacked maybe and not attacked. All that different kind of stuff. But it wasn't every week."
#JimmySays: It was previously reported that Fangio mainly helped the offense, but he confirmed it.
"I think that's a fair assumption," Fangio said.
#JimmySays: During the 2022 playoffs, then-Eagles defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon had several interviews for head coaching jobs around the league, but when Gannon communicated that he was staying in Philly for the 2023 season, Fangio accepted a defensive coordinator position with the Dolphins, when his preference would have been Philly. After Gannon had impermissible contact with the Cardinals while the Eagles were preparing to face the Chiefs in the Super Bowl — and subsequently accepted a head coaching job in Arizona after the Eagles' loss to the Chiefs — Fangio had already committed elsewhere, forcing the Eagles to turn to Plan C, Sean Desai.
"Good players," he said. "And I'm not trying to be a wise guy with that. We have a system that is versatile, we like to think. It needs to be versatile because every week you're facing different strengths of an offense, different schemes. So, what you play in one week 10, 15 times, you may not play at all the next week. You have to have a versatile system for the offenses today in the NFL. What we'll eventually do is learn what our guys are best at.
"I like to throw a lot at them early because I think one of the worst things you can do is come Week 3, Week 5, ‘Man, we could really use this scheme,’ but it hadn't been introduced to the players yet. Whereas if you introduced it to them in training camp and worked on it, when you pull it back out three, four weeks later, there's recall. We'll throw a lot at them in training camp to see what best fits for them, what they're good at, and then try and whittle it down, but always keeping some stuff in the bank in case we need it at some point during the season."
#JimmySays: One of the players' complaints about Sean Desai a year ago was that he tried to do too much in terms of varying schemes. It'll be interesting to see if the more experienced Fangio is more successful implementing that approach.
"I think he’s talented enough that no matter what we do with him, we’ll be maximizing him," Fangio said when asked how they can best make use of Carter's talents. "He’s got to get in great shape, which I think he’s off to a great start here, so we can play him a lot."
#JimmySays: Carter was a stud for the first three months of the season, but he slowed down late. Fangio praised Carter's conditioning efforts, but it's still interesting that he brought that up on his own.
"He's heading into his third year," Fangio said. "I think he's off to a good start this offseason. I don't have anything to compare it to, not having been here his first two years.
"But I think he's working good. I think he's rounding into good shape. It's up to us to give him the opportunity and platform to get in good shape, and then rely on him when he leaves here and that dead time between the offseason and camp. From what I've seen so far, very encouraging."
#JimmySays: Fangio's focus is in the right place with Carter and Davis.
"I didn't see that at all, really," he said. "Anything we do, whether there, here, or anywhere else I've been, is what we think is the best for the team and best for the defense, specifically, to stop somebody. Wherever that falls, that's where it falls."
#JimmySays: Good question, worth asking, but he was never going to admit that.
"It was exactly 40 years ago when I started my pro coaching career across the street at Veterans Stadium, and I thought it would be cool to hopefully end it here," Fangio said. "So, 40 years later, here I am. A lot of things change, and a lot of things don't. One of the first things I've done, several times, I still go to the Philadium down on Packer for my meals, just like I did way back then. Phillies are still playing good. You guys didn't clobber them for losing one game yesterday, did you? But no, just to come back, my kids live two hours south of here. My mother, who's 97, lives two hours north of here. So, a lot of family considerations.
"I was a big Philly fan growing up in all sports. It was a thrill for me to go to work every day at Veterans Stadium 40 years ago because I used to go to games there all the time. And now it's a good thrill to come back 40 years later and hopefully finish it out here."
#JimmySays: For those of you who like rooting for guys "from here."
"Terminology, plays are plays, words are words," Moore said. "I think it's a combination of things we can build off of. If everyone understands a play and it makes sense, let's keep things in place. It's not that complicated. We're continuing to evolve the system to make sure the language ties together, that the communication can be clean, and whether that word comes from Philadelphia, Los Angeles, or somewhere in between, we're building that as we go."
#JimmySays: The players have plenty of time to master new terminology between now and September. I agree with Moore that that really shouldn't be that big a deal.
"Certainly the shift in motion aspect of it, it probably goes back to how I grew up around the game with my dad being a high school coach, then being in college at Boise State, we kind of used it a lot," Moore said. "It's always kind of stuck with me. There's obviously advantages to it.
"There's some things that you're trying to gather information for the defense, and there's other times you're simply stressing the defense. So I think there's those two elements. Ultimately you're trying to build packages and create things so that the run and the action game and the drop-back game. So there's alignment and similarities with the presentations that allows us to stress the defense with those different looks."
#JimmySays: The Eagles' lack of motion has been strange, frankly. If there's one thing that Moore can bring to the table that should immediately make the Eagles' playmakers more difficult to defend, it's the utilization of pre-snap motion.
"Clean operation," he said. "As far as for me, just keep a clean operation for the quarterback. Hopefully we've prepared the right way. We understand that adjustments have to be made during games. There's always those elements. You've got to be a clean, steady, operation for the quarterback. He deals with a lot during games. Understand that aspect of it. Hopefully I can provide that."
#JimmySays: One of the buzz phrases that was thrown around in Dallas when Moore was the Cowboys' offensive coordinator was that they were trying to build a "Dak-friendly" offense. Moore, of course, is a former quarterback himself and understands how demanding it is to be one in the NFL. It sounds like Moore is looking to make the Eagles' offense more "Jalen-friendly."
"They have a front view seat at this thing," Moore said. "We want to give the QB tools and the ability to make the adjustments necessary at the line of scrimmage while also trying to keep it as clean and concise so he can play fast. Ultimately, we want them to have the ability to make the adjustments necessary, but we can't dilute it to the point that he's got 500 million things that he can potentially do at the line of scrimmage and now we're not all on the same page.
"A lot of times the QB note is what it is, but it's also making sure all 11 are tied to what the adjustments are. Jalen's been phenomenal. I'm excited about building that process with him."
#JimmySays: Modern offenses simply won't work if the quarterback is not given the ability to make checks at the line, but it sounds like the scope with with Hurts can make changes will have limits, which is probably a smart approach to have with most young quarterbacks.
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