July 31, 2025
Philadelphia Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio spoke with the media on Tuesday. As always, he was open and honest, so let's dive in and analyze what he said, even if a little late (sorry).
Fangio: "The first few days out here, it was kind of like you didn't know he was out there. The ball wasn't going his way at all, and then yesterday, he had a couple balls thrown his way and he did very well. He had a very good day yesterday. It's too early to say what his experience is or isn't right now. He's played a good bit of ball, but I think this is the place where he's got to show who he is and be the player hopefully that people have always thought he could be.
"I didn't watch a whole lot of tape on him. Howie wanted to sign him, and when Howie wants to sign somebody it doesn't matter what I say. So we just took him in.
"I didn't really watch a lot of his tape last year, but I've seen him play over the years. Saw him when he was coming out of college."
Fangio was then asked why he thinks this is the place Jackson can play well.
"I don't know if I think it's the place," he said. "I think it's time for him to show that. In Tennessee, when it came time to re-sign him after his contract was up, they didn't. The Giants, his contract was up, they didn't. It's time to show who he is or who he isn't."
#JimmySays: Lol, wow, Fangio went way out of his way to distance himself from the addition of Jackson, going as far as to say that he had nothing to do with the signing, didn't even watch tape of him, and noting that his two former teams didn't make efforts to retain him after his contracts expired. š³
In my opinion, Jackson hasn't been bad so far in camp, so these comments were a bit surprising to me.
Fangio: "He's doing fine. He's competing. He's in great shape, and probably this is his first real opportunity and I think he's trying to do his best to take advantage of it and he's right there."
#JimmySays: I'm sure Ringo will gladly take "He's doing fine" after what Fangio said about Jackson.
Fangio: "He just has to pay attention to meetings to get mental reps, but there's no replacing physical reps. Meetings and mental reps are good, but the value of them compared to physical reps is night and day."
#JimmySays: The message here: "Get back out there, rookie."
Fangio: "He's finally getting to start in the OTAs, training camp to learn his way through the system and learn how we expect him to play, and he had no chance of that last year, so I see him getting better."
#JimmySays: These are probably the most encouraging words that Fangio has had for Brown since he's been the defensive coordinator.
Fangio: "I think it's going fine. We just haven't, to be honest, we haven't had enough snaps of it for him. Our offense is primarily playing 11 personnel out there against us, so we haven't had a ton of base snaps up to this point. I'd like to see him get some more and get him tested. I don't know that he's ever truly been tested yet with a hard play."
#JimmySays: I agree here. Whenever DeJean has been at safety in base, we haven't seen a something like, I dunno, a deep ball to A.J. Brown on DeJean's side of the field.
Fangio: "Yeah, I think it can improve obviously with work and I think the work he's put in has made it. He has improved. He had a nice interception yesterday, which I don't know if he [would have made it] last year, but ball skills are a natural thing, too, so the improvement you can make is incremental, but any improvement he can make, he'll make because he'll work at it."
#JimmySays: Fangio very clearly loves Mitchell, and views him as a hard worker capable of reaching his ceiling.
Fangio: "I think he'll hold up well. He did last year when he played in there. He's a year older, a year of playing significant snaps under his belt, getting reps here in training camp. I think he'll do good."
#JimmySays: Fangio has always liked Ojomo, both against the pass and the run.
Fangio: "I do see him making small strides every day. Again, it may not be noticeable to the average eye, but he's making good strides and if he can keep making those strides, I think he'll be what we had hoped he would be."
#JimmySays: Campbell is already regularly mixing in with the first-team defense.
Fangio: "Yeah, he's much more advanced. Obviously, he got to be a part of the team last year. Went through everything last year. Don't believe he was ever hurt last year, never missed any time. Now second year through in the same system, he's much better than he was last year at this time."Ā
#JimmySays: Personally, I thought Trotter had a decent camp as a rookie. He never looked overwhelmed, and that he knew what he was doing. And yes, I agree that he has notably improved from last year to this year.
Fangio: "Yeah, I feel good about Nolan, and Jalyx is making good strides. After that, we have got some heavy competition going on and nobody's really truly surfaced yet. Good or bad. Hopefully over the course of this camp and preseason games, that will play itself out."
#JimmySays: Josh Uche had a very good day of practice after these comments, so maybe Fangio feels a little differently about him now. Azeez Ojulari has been invisible.
Fangio: "Mac's got some good football instincts. He's got to learn the finer points of what we're doing all the time. He's a little hit and miss with that right now, but that's to be expected. But I do like the player. I think he's got good skill and he's got a little football savvy to him, which if you don't have that, it's hard to coach that."
#JimmySays: One of the under-discussed potential starting lineup configurations is Reed Blankenship and Cooper DeJean at safety, Quinyon Mitchell and Ringo or Jackson at outside corner, and McWilliams in the slot. (I don't think that's likely, but there's a non-zero chance that we see that.)
Follow Jimmy & PhillyVoice on Twitter: @JimmyKempski | thePhillyVoice
And on Threads and Bluesky: @JimmyKempskiĀ and @JimmyKempski, lol
Like us on Facebook: PhillyVoice Sports
Add Jimmy's RSS feed to your feed reader
