Vic Fangio quietly savors a Super Bowl masterpiece, as Josh Sweat and the Eagles defense feast on the Chiefs

NEW ORLEANS — Vic Fangio lounged on a white couch with his girlfriend, Kathy Maruyama, nestled to his side in a quieter room across from the main stage at the Eagles’ Super Bowl LIX victory party.

The architect of the defensive destruction of Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs had finally won a Super Bowl after 38 NFL seasons. Fangio didn’t look or act much different from his normal subdued self amid the raucous celebration at the Hilton Riverside — except for one thing.

“Yeah, I’ve been doing a lot of smiling,” Fangio said to The Inquirer in the early morning hours of Monday.

Maruyama, Fangio’s partner of 14-plus years, concurred.

“All his players were saying — we’ve never seen him smile so much,” she said.

The Eagles’ 40-22 victory on Sunday doesn’t vindicate the 66-year-old coordinator. Fangio had long ago established himself as an innovator and builder of great defenses. He had already left his mark on the game of football. All that was missing was an elusive Super Bowl title. Or was it?

» READ MORE: Eagles grades: MVP Jalen Hurts spectacular on the biggest stage, and the D-line dominates the Chiefs

“I heard a quote that Dean Smith [said] many years ago. If you guys remember, he went to a bunch of Final Fours before he finally won one,” Fangio said earlier in the home locker room at the Superdome. “And they asked him the next day, ‘How does it feel you got a monkey [off your back]?’ He said, ‘I’m the same coach today as I was yesterday. We just got a championship.’

“So I don’t look at it as it validates me or anything. It’s just a great accomplishment.”

Fangio’s unit did validate its standing as one of the best NFL defenses in recent memory. The Eagles were dominating on both ends, but the defensive line overwhelmed the Chiefs offensive line and stressed, struck and, lastly, sacked Mahomes for three-plus quarters.

The Eagles’ four-man rush pressured the Kansas City quarterback on 38.1% of his drops. They hit Mahomes 11 times. The six sacks he took were the most in any game over his eight-year career. And they did it without blitzing him once on his 42 drops.

“He’s so good against pressure that I was hoping we could play the game without having to pressure much, and that happened,” said Fangio, who had previously gone 0-for-8 vs. Mahomes. “They exceeded my hopes and expectations, but I did believe we could have a good pass rush game.”

Josh Sweat led the way with a career-best 2½ sacks. But numbers tell only part of his night. The defensive end had other pressures that led to Eagles sacks and an interception. Sweat got the best of left tackle Joe Thuney, who had been playing out of position for the Chiefs.

“He don’t play tackle. He’s a guard,” Sweat said. “That’s all it was. But we don’t underestimate anybody.”

The D-line rushed as one. They didn’t take wild swings. They flooded the “B” gaps and contained Mahomes when he tried to escape. Defensive tackle Milton Williams had two sacks, and he recovered a fumble he had forced. Nose tackle Jordan Davis notched a sack, too, and rookie defensive end Jalyx Hunt split a sack with Sweat.

Defensive tackle Jalen Carter was held without a sack, but he hit Mahomes twice, drew a holding penalty, and freed up others whenever the Chiefs slid protection to his side. But Sweat set the temperature from the start.

“He was awesome,” Fangio said. “He’s been awesome all year. He’s a tough son of a [bleep], a real warrior type of guy, and I really, really love him.”

Sweat could have been named the game’s MVP.

“I should’ve had it,” he said. “I could’ve had it. It’s all good, though.”

Quarterback Jalen Hurts won the award and was as deserving. But the Eagles defense had Mahomes and Andy Reid’s offense in a vise from the jump. The Chiefs offense went punt, punt, punt, interception, punt, interception, punt, punt and turned the ball over on downs on its first nine possessions.

Mahomes completed just 9 of 18 passes for 41 net yards over that span. Fangio’s zones — particularly quarters — confounded the three-time champion. A pick-six by rookie cornerback Cooper DeJean in the second quarter expanded the Eagles’ lead to 17-0.

And two series later, linebacker Zack Baun had an interception of his own — after Sweat walked Thuney into Mahomes’ lap — that set up Hurts’ 12-yard touchdown pass to receiver A.J. Brown and a 24-0 margin at the break.

» READ MORE: Zack Baun’s storybook season with the Eagles concludes with a Super Bowl INT and championship

The Eagles didn’t let up after a 34-minute halftime that featured a performance from Kendrick Lamar. They built 34-0 and 40-6 leads. They won in the trenches on both sides. It’s been the franchise’s longtime philosophy, implemented first by Reid, and continued by general manager Howie Roseman.

It’s one thing to follow that blueprint. It’s another to execute it.

“I think that’s the vision,” Roseman said. “When you have the kind of players that we have, the kind of resources we put into the lines, you imagine coming into this game and them leading the way.”

Roseman may lose two of the key cogs up front to free agency. Williams and Sweat are slated to hit the market in March. The latter agreed to restructure his contract to just one year and take a pay cut last offseason, but his gamble likely paid off.

“Money’s important, sure, but I want to be in the right situation,” Sweat said. “I don’t know what it looks like for me now, but I’m happy.”

Many players flourished in Fangio’s scheme. It’s not overly complicated. He corrected a reporter who suggested it wasn’t easy to comprehend. “That’s a fallacy,” he said. But one of the secrets is that its relative simplicity makes it easier to master and to disguise.

The Eagles wanted to hire Fangio, who was consulting for them during their Super Bowl LVII run, after Jonathan Gannon left to become Cardinals head coach. But he had an offer from the Dolphins and didn’t want to wait.

“It was very frustrating,” Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie said.

But Fangio wanted out of Miami a year later and said he told Roseman he would be available. And the Eagles were ready to move quickly after the Sean Desai-Matt Patricia debacle factored into their late season collapse in 2023.

“I just told him, I said, ‘I’m going to get out of Miami, if you’re interested,’” Fangio said. “I’m here. It was done many days before it was announced.”

He came in and immediately changed the culture in the defensive room. He told the players they needed to work harder. They needed to be better conditioned. They needed to practice more. Fangio didn’t blame them. He pointed the finger at modern approaches to preparation.

» READ MORE: Inside the eight-cylinder mind of Vic Fangio

It took a little while to jell after a 2-2 start. But personnel changes at the bye helped spur improvement. Carter, Williams, and edge Nolan Smith would play more snaps at the expense of Davis and defensive end Bryce Huff. And DeJean would take over in the slot.

“The knock on him was he wouldn’t play young players,” Lurie said. “We’ve got incredible young players on his defense. You know, he had a lot of faith in Quinyon [Mitchell], Reed [Blankenship], Cooper, and Nolan.”

Fangio credited the young group’s maturity, but also veteran leaders like defensive end Brandon Graham and cornerback Darius Slay.

“They were very, very coachable,” he said. “They have a good level of intelligence for what we do. … A lot of youth, lot of inexperience, but they’re good players.”

Fangio grew up a fan of Philadelphia sports teams in Dunmore, Pa. The Eagles weren’t good through most of his formative years in the 1960s and ’70s. But coach Dick Vermeil turned fortunes around and finally had the Birds in the Super Bowl XV held here.

“I do remember … being very sad that they lost that game,” Fangio said of the 27-10 loss to the Raiders. “I’m friends with Dick Vermeil now. He texts me before every game and after every game. So I kind of feel like he’s kind of a little part of it.”

There’s been a lot of karma to Fangio’s return to Philly, where he got his professional coaching start with the Stars of the USFL. They won two championships. But his NFL dry spell started in 1986 when he followed Stars coach Jim Mora to the Saints.

» READ MORE: Cooper DeJean’s Super Bowl TD could get him a street named in his tiny Iowa hometown

Fangio spent nine seasons here and helmed the “Dome Patrol” linebacker unit. He said winning in New Orleans made it “a little special.” Twelve years ago, he fell agonizingly short of winning a title when his 49ers were bested by the Ravens, 34-29, at the Superdome.

Normally stoic about such matters, Fangio told The Inquirer before the season about a late-night stroll of frustration through the French Quarter. He would helm strong defenses later with the Bears and Broncos, but never got close again.

Until this year.

“He’s been in the league since 1986 and the football gods are hard,” Roseman said. “Football gods have been hard on me. Football gods have been hard on a lot of people here. And I think at the end of the day, the football gods wanted him to win his first world championship as a Philadelphia Eagle.”

Fangio wanted to coach the Eagles for many reasons, but returning to his home state would allow him to be closer to his two children, two grandchildren, and 97-year-old mother, who still lives in the three-bedroom house he grew up in.

“I think they enjoyed it more,” Fangio said of his family, “because it was Philadelphia than if I was somewhere else.”

After his postgame interview, Fangio held up the Italian flag for pictures. Eagles chief of security Dom DiSandro, another one proud of his heritage, handed it to him.

Reminded of the French Quarter walk he said he took 12 years ago when he couldn’t sleep, Fangio was asked if he might take a celebratory one.

“I might do that,” he said. “Go down the Preservation Hall, listen to some good jazz music.”

Later at the victory party, Fangio said he would be packing it in soon, however, and going to bed. And around 1:30 a.m. Central Standard Time, he and Maruyama got up and walked out.

Fangio still had a grin on his face, but it was time to sleep.