Several Miami Dolphins defensive players were not big fans of Vic Fangio during his tenure with the team. But a year after he left, he's helped the Philadelphia Eagles reach the Super Bowl with a top-ranked defense.
Jevon Holland can kick as many stones as he wants and Cam Smith still hasn't done anything after his release from the Fangio doghouse. The reality is Fangio wanted the Dolphins to be physically and mentally tough and didn't get either.
When Fangio left Miami last year, most thought it was a blessing. In some ways, maybe it was. Anthony Weaver helped the Dolphins rank quite high in his first season as the team's defensive coordinator and it appears he will return for a second in 2025.
Meanwhile, Eagles players have raved about Fangio's no-nonsense system that holds them accountable for what they do on the field. Something Miami players didn't seem to like.
Fangio recently spoke with Pro Football Network during a Super Bowl media session and was asked about his time in Miami, specifically what went wrong.
"Nothing really [went wrong]. Up until the last couple of games, we were ranked very high in defense. We were top-five in every stat. Then we lost six or seven starters over the last few games."
Vic Fangio says nothing was wrong with the Miami Dolphins until the final few games of the 2023 season.
If you look at the statistics, Fangio is 100 percent correct. The Dolphins were in good shape most of the season but in the final three games, their defense was simply depleted of starters. Miami was picking free agents off the streets just to field a defensive unit for the playoffs.
Jerome Baker, Andrew Van Ginkel, Bradley Chubb, Jaelan Phillips, Jevon Holland, Cameron Goode, and Xavien Howard were either out in the first week of the playoffs or missed time in the last couple of games. That is a lot of starters to overcome being out.
The Dolphins lost to the Kansas City Chiefs in the first round of the 2023 playoffs, and Fangio left shortly thereafter. For Miami, the defense didn't regress much under Weaver, but Fangio being in the Super Bowl is proof that his way of doing things isn't necessarily wrong if you have the right mindset instilled in players who want to be coached.