Super Bowl VIX
Hear it here!
Super Bowl heroes are usually star players, mostly quarterbacks, who perform great things on the biggest stage.
But once in a blue moon it’s about someone who the fans never see, who has toiled for decades in countless places, a football lifer, so to speak, who is nowhere close to being a household name.
A guy who has been a success but has never gabbed the brass ring.
Now, a man named Vic Fangio is finally a champion.
Who is Vic Fangio?
He’s the man who designed the defense that throttled the great Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and the chief reason, in my view, why the Philadelphia Eagles are the NFL world champions.
The best defense in the league crushed the hopes of the Kansas City Chiefs to become the first in history to capture three straight Super Bowls.
A three-peat that never happened.
It was the defense that sacked Mahomes 6 times and forced three turnovers including two interceptions, one returned for a touchdown.
It was a blowout that saw the Eagles take a 34-0 lead before the Chiefs tallied three scores in garbage time after the contest was put to bed. The final score was 40-22 but it was a bigger rout than that.
Who would have figured that the Eagles could dominate without a huge contribution from their brilliant running back, Saquon Barkley? But they did. Barkley gained only 57 yards, his second lowest output of the season. Against the Chiefs his longest run was a mere 10 yards. Barkley was never a factor.
But quarterback Jalen Hurts scampered for 72 in support of his solid pass production.
You can’t give the Most Valuable Player award to the entire defensive unit, so Hurts, who passed and ran effectively got the nod. You can’t win the big games in the NFL at this stage without big-time plays by your quarterback. Hurts gave them that.
He was deserving.
But the stifling pass rush and run stuffing from the 4-man defensive front was the real difference in the game.
Forty-three year old Nick Sirianni who began his coaching career in Kansas City before he was let go by Chiefs head man Andy Reid, avenged his loss to Reid and the Chiefs two years ago to win his first Super Bowl. Reid, the former Eagles leader had no answer to his ex-team’s performance.
So the rising sentiment that Mahomes was on the brink to surpass Tom Brady as the NFL’s best quarterback of all-time is now quieted for the time being.
But the true story of the game was about the Philadelphia defense.A year ago, Vic Fangio was in charge of a struggling Miami Dolphins unit. He parted ways with the Dolphins to go back East, specifically to the Philadelphia area where his family still resided.
The Eagles, who allowed the sixth most points last season hired Fangio who had been with 13 different college and pro teams in a 41-year coaching career. His one head coaching opportunity was with the Broncos but he didn’t get the job done and was fired.
So at 67, Fangio stuck to the thing he knew best.
This year, under his leadership, Philly gave up the second fewest points in the league.
He’s been a man who has rarely smiled when in public and has preferred to simply go about his business in almost anonymous fashion.
But the week of the Super Bowl, Vic Fangio let his guard down and said he thought people were rooting for him to finally win a championship.
I think he was right.
So, now he has won one.
I bet he’s smiling a lot.
