Bleeding Green Nation
Eagles opposing player to stop, Super Bowl edition
Poll anyone with a pulse in the Delaware Valley area and they know by now Patrick Mahomes is 8-0 against Vic Fangio defenses. They know Mahomes is undefeated in domed stadiums. They know Mahomes beat them two years in the Super Bowl. They know Mahomes walks on water in regards to the national media.
What always seems to get lost in this is that Fangio never had the personnel he has now with the Eagles’ defense, entering Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans on Sunday.
Mahomes and Kansas City Chiefs are going for threepeats—the Chiefs as unprecedented Super Bowl winners and Mahomes as unprecedented three-time-straight Super Bowl MVP.
Mahomes knows what he is dealing with.
“Every time I’ve played coach Fangio, there’s been different change-ups and different things that he’s thrown at us,” Mahomes said during Super Bowl week. “I think that’s what makes him so great is he’s not gonna just do exactly what you saw the last time. I’m sure there will be blitzes during the game, I’m sure there will be times where they play coverage.
“It’s gonna be a chess match. But you want to go up against the best and he’s one of the best defensive coordinators in the NFL. It’ll be a great challenge for us as an offense and as a football team.”
Fangio certainly knows what he is dealing with. He was 0-6 against Kansas City when he was the Denver Broncos head coach, and 0-2 against the Chiefs during the 2023 season as defensive coordinator of the Miami Dolphins.
This is a different breed Fangio has this season.
First, Fangio did not have much of anything while he was the Broncos’ head coach. His career record there was 19-30 in three seasons. Denver’s anemic offense averaged 11.87 points in eight games against the Chiefs, who were three-time AFC West Division winners with a cumulative 38-11 record in the time Fangio was coaching Denver.
In contrast, the Eagles have won two less games in one season, going 17-3 overall, than Fangio’s woeful Broncos did in three years.
Secondly, this Eagles defense has allowed an average of a mere 174.2 passing yards a game in 2024, the fewest in the NFL. The Eagles’ defense—Fangio’s designed defense—also ranks first in yards per play allowed (4.7) and total yards per game allowed (278.4). The Eagles are second in points per game allowed (17.8) and third in opponent passer rating (82.5).
“They have good players, they’re well coached,” Fangio said this week about the Chiefs. “We’ve got to have a good tackling game. These guys run well after the catch, obviously Mahomes is elusive, (Isiah) Pacheco runs extremely hard. Tackling is going to be paramount.
“(Mahomes) has won the chess match against me, the final score. We’ll see if we can come up with something.”
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