The Cowboys’ annual rivalry series versus the Eagles looks like it may be a little bit tougher moving forward, as Philadelphia is adding to their staff a key assistant, one who seems to have a recent knack for giving Dallas fits.
The Eagles are expected to make Vic Fangio their new defensive coordinator, according to multiple reports from various league insiders Wednesday evening. The 65-year-old Fangio, a veteran coach who has roamed the sidelines for ten clubs over an NFL career spanning nearly four decades, spent the 2023 season as Miami’s defensive coordinator.
That’s where the Cowboys ran into him last, in a Week 16 loss that saw Fangio’s unit hold Dallas to under 100 team rushing yards, sack Dak Prescott four times, allow just four third-down conversions, and create a touchdown-saving turnover at the goal line en route to a two-point Dolphins win.
The Dolphins recover the fumble at the goal line!
📺: #DALvsMIA on FOX
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus https://t.co/UIg1XAk0MB pic.twitter.com/o1Yz1AKuQc— NFL (@NFL) December 24, 2023
But Fangio’s defenses have actually made a habit of those kind of performances against the Cowboys’ offenses of the Mike McCarthy era.
As Denver’s head coach in 2021, Fangio’s Broncos shocked the 6-1 Cowboys in an early-November blowout loss that was nowhere near as close as the 30-16 final might indicate.
Fangio shut out Dallas’s top-ranked offense until the final five minutes, when Denver was already up by an overwhelming 30-0 score. Holding the Cowboys rushing attack to just 78 yards and limiting their offense to under 19 minutes of possession, the Broncos defense also managed to contain Prescott to the tune of barely five yards per pass and stop Dallas on four fourth-down conversion attempts.
Denver’s defense is playing lights out. #BroncosCountry
📺: #DENvsDAL on FOX
📱: NFL app pic.twitter.com/PsCtItoEf8— NFL (@NFL) November 7, 2021
“They bought into what we had to do to have a chance to slow them down,” Fangio said of his team that day. “We did more than slow them down.”
Afterward, the popular narrative in Dallas was that Fangio had just shown the rest of the league the “blueprint” on how to stymie the Cowboys’ high-powered offense.
McCarthy downplayed that characterization at the time, but did admit to reporters, “Frankly, we were outcoached.”
It was a rare bright spot for Fangio in the Mile High City. The Pennsylvania native departed Denver after that season and was…
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