When you discuss modern defense in the NFL, you won’t get very far without discussing the “Fangio system,” i.e., the series of concepts installed by legendary defensive coach Vic Fangio over the last few years. The shorthand version of “Fangio” refers to light boxes, simulated pressures, and predominantly two-high coverages with an emphasis on quarter-quarter-half (Cover-6). It’s a system that has become all the rage in the NFL today, so it was not surprising that after a year off, in which he spent time studying tape in Florida and consulting with the Philadelphia Eagles, the man himself returned to the league as the Miami Dolphins’ defensive coordinator. Fangio was the head coach of the Denver Broncos from 2019 through 2021; he was fired after a 19-30 record and no playoff appearances, but Fangio ran a defense that ranked eighth in yards allowed and third in points allowed by the time he was done.
That’s aligned with his root philosophy.
“We’re in charge of not letting the other team score, and we will do anything and everything to do that,” Fangio said during his Miami introductory press conference on February 20, when asked about his overall defensive philosophy. “I’ve been places in the past where we pressured a lot. I’ve been places where we didn’t pressure very much. You’ve got to fit the scheme to the players that you have while also factoring in the opponents that you’re playing.
“So hopefully, we’ll be a team that will keep the points down, make it hard for teams to score a lot of points, and put our offense in position to score points for us. I’m not a buzzword guy as far as that goes other than we want to play good defense and what’s good defense? Keep them out of the end zone.”
The 2022 Dolphins ranked 15th in Defensive DVOA under defensive coordinator Josh Boyer; 25th against the pass, and fourth against the run. In recent years, the Dolphins had a very specific defensive DNA that was radically different than what Fangio is bringing in, so that’s the best place to start.
(All advanced metrics courtesy of Pro Football Focus, Sports Info Solutions, and Football Outsiders unless otherwise indicated).
What the pass-rushers will look like.
The Dolphins selected edge-rusher Jaelan Phillips with the 18th overall pick in the 2021 draft out of Miami, and Phillips had 10 sacks in his rookie season. Impressive enough, but Phillips’ 2022 season was a breakout — he matched his 2021 total with 10 sacks, but his pressure numbers skyrocketed from 39 to 77 — only five edge defenders had more total pressures last season.
At 6-foot-5 and 263 pounds, Phillips can win inside the tackles just as effectively as he can disrupt from the edge. Three of his sacks came inside, and No. 15 can get to the quarterback from just about anywhere.
The Dolphins also traded for ex-Broncos edge-rusher Bradley Chubb last November. Fangio came to Denver the year after the Broncos selected Chubb with the fifth overall pick in the 2018 draft out of North Carolina State. Chubb has dealt with more injuries than he would have liked throughout his career, but when he’s on (as he was in 2022), well… a career-high 10 sacks, and 57 total pressures as a bookend to Phillips isn’t bad at all.
“Yeah, that’s one of my favorite coaches that I’ve been in a room with just because he expects so much out of his players, and he’s going to keep it straight up with you,” Chubb said in April of Fangio. “If he calls a play and you didn’t execute, he’s going to ask you, ‘Why didn’t you execute? I put you in a position to execute. Why didn’t you?’ So in this high-paced game we play, that’s what you need. You just need that transparency. You need somebody to be on you a little bit to hold you to that standard that we hold ourselves to. That’s what he’s going to do and I’m excited about it.”
Execution is a big deal with Fangio’s fronts. With the Broncos in 2021, Fangio (who ran the defense even though he was the head coach) alternated between his preferred 2-4-5 fronts, 3-3-4 stuff, and 2-3-6 fronts with not a lot of blitzing. This represents a massive change from what the Dolphins did under former DC Josh Boyer — in 2022, Miami blitzed on 35% of its defensive snaps, which ranked second in the NFL. Fangio’s 2021 Broncos blitzed on 26% of their snaps, and that was an uptick from the 23% Denver did in 2019.
Mitigating the light box quandary.
Fangio’s preference for light boxes represents another major difference from what the Dolphins were doing before. Last season, Miami played 33% of its snaps with a light box, dead last in the league. In 2021, Fangio’s Broncos ranked second in the league with a 75% light box rate, and that was up from 65% in his first season of 2019.
If you want to know how light boxes can negatively affect a defense, especially when dealing with the run, look no further than the Los Angeles Chargers, whose head coach, Brandon Staley, was Fangio’s outside linebackers coach with the Chicago Bears in 2017 and 2018, and with the Broncos in 2019. In 2022, Staley’s Chargers went with light boxes on 54% of their snaps, and because they didn’t have the kind of interior defensive personnel to offset it, they ranked 29th in Football Outsiders’ Defensive Adjusted Line Yards metric, and allowed a league-high 5.55 yards per carry to running backs.
Fortunately for Fangio, he has at least three linemen who can minimize those issues, starting with defensive tackle Christian Wilkins.
“Christian Wilkins is here, another guy I liked in the draft. Christian’s greatest honor is the Bill Campbell Award trophy, which is the ‘Academic Heisman.’” Fangio said in February. “Bill Campbell was a good friend of mine. So when I see him, I always think of that. But there’s a good nucleus of players here. For me to give you a great answer schematically, I’d be stretching it.”
Whatever Fangio does with Wilkins, that’s his primary run defender on the line, and for good reason. The 6-foot-4, 310 pound Wilkins, selected by the Dolphins with the 13th overall pick in the 2019 draft out of Clemson, led all interior defensive linemen with 46 stops, and a 12.4% stop rate. No. 94 shot gaps all season long to prevent opposing running backs from getting back to the line of scrimmage, even when the back was of the caliber of Christian McCaffrey.
Miami also has Zach Sieler, who played all over the fronts last season (mostly at three-tech) and was responsible for the NFL’s second-most stops (36) and seventh-highest stop rate (10.3%). Between Wilkins and Sieler, Fangio has the guys in the middle to run his light boxes without the attendant issues common to those concepts in other places.
The glue guy in this case is Emmanuel Ogbah, who was on pace for another excellent season before he suffered a torn triceps in Week 10 against the Cleveland Browns, which brought his 2022 to a close. Ogbah is a perfect combination of multi-gap pass-rusher and run-stopper. Minnesota’s Dalvin Cook did not have an enjoyable day against Mr. Ogbah in Week 6.
So, Fangio should be able to run all the light boxes he wants without too much worry about getting gashed in the run game.
Two-high or die: What the coverages will be.
It’s important to mention that Fangio, who has preferred to roll with nickel defenses and two linebackers above all else since his San Francisco days, has two estimable linebackers in Jerome Baker and David Long. They’ll tie pressure, run defense and coverage together, and let’s get into Fangio’s coverage concepts.
If there’s one thing you know about a Fangio-coached defense, it’s that you’re going to see a ton of two-deep coverage — two safeties up top. They may work to other coverage looks pre-snap, but that’s the base of it. And this marks another radical change for Miami’s defense. Last season, the Dolphins lined up in single-high coverage pre-snap on 65% of their defensive snaps, which led the league. Conversely, Fangio’s 2021 Broncos played two-high pre-snap on 72% of their snaps, which also led the league. Denver was in two-high on 81% of their snaps in 2020 and 78% in 2019 — all of these rates led the league — so, this is pretty much the way it’s going to be.
However, Fangio isn’t particularly beholden to man or zone coverage as a primary construct. Over his time in Denver, his rates of man coverage increased from 32% in 2019 to 42% in 2021, and that had a lot to do with the additions of stars like cornerback Patrick Surtain II, who were just more comfortable with it. Last season, Miami played man on 35% of their snaps, sixth-highest in the NFL.
Miami’s two top cornerbacks, Xavien Howard and Jalen Ramsey, were more comfortable in zone than in man coverages last season. And Ramsey had one of the best seasons of his career under Brandon Staley when Staley was the Rams’ defensive coordinator in 2020, so there’s a linkup.
The question is, with the addition of South Carolina cornerback Cam Smith with the 51st overall pick in the second round, whether Ramsey might play more of the STAR or overhang roles as Smith becomes more comfortable with the rigors of the NFL.
“It’s a very similar scheme, so that’s a blessing,” Ramsey said of his new defense in mid-March, after the trade that brought him from Los Angeles to Miami. “I might have to learn some new terminology and how [Fangio] names things and stuff like that, but I’m very familiar with the scheme, love the scheme. There are different ways to play it, and that just depends on the flow of our team and exactly what he wants me to do. But because I have that versatility, I can do whatever that he asks of me.
“If he wants me and ‘X’ [Xavien Howard] to lock up the outside, that’s what we’re going to do. And then they’re going to do their jobs everywhere else. If he wants me to move around a little bit, go into nickel, go into dime, blitz, cover tight ends, running backs, whatever it is, I’ll be able to do all of it. I think everybody knows that. You all know me. You all know how I get down. You know what I do. So being able to bring that to this defense and this secondary is going to be cool for sure.”
I wrote a piece after the trade on how I thought Ramsey would best fit in Fangio’s defense, and the overhang/slot/hybrid safety roles are better for him at this point in his career than pressing receivers at the line of scrimmage and trailing them all over the field.
Cam Smith was my fifth-ranked cornerback in this draft class — he’s great in man coverage, but can also play the off and overhang roles. Fangio could play Smith at safety depth and get away with it because Smith closes to the ball so well.
Jevon Holland will be Fangio’s star safety, and he mentioned Holland specifically back in February.
“I haven’t studied him enough since he’s gotten the NFL as far as what can I teach him, but I do know I really liked them the year he came out in the draft. I like his physical ability, his combination of size, speed, quickness, he’s got good instincts. I think he’s smart from a football standpoint. And you’re right, we’ve had some good luck with safeties over the years in the last few stops, and I’m hopeful and confident that he can be one of the top safeties in the league.”
Two of Holland’s three interceptions last season came out of a two-high start, so that should fit pretty well.
The Dolphins signed former Detroit Lions and Baltimore Ravens safety DeShon Elliott to a one-year contract, and Elliott could be in the mix for a lot of those two-high reps along with Holland.
“I talked to Vic and I talked to a couple guys,” Elliott said in March of his fit in this particular defense. “I was talking to Jevon. It was more of like just this is a safety-driven defense. Safeties in this defense can make a lot of plays. I think this is also very similar to the system I just left from and I think I was trying to get my feet back up under me while I was in Detroit. So, I think I could just build on that and knowing that this system is staying the same. I can even be better. I have a lot of talent that I haven’t gotten to show yet because of my injuries that I’ve had over the years, but I think I’m only getting better.”
Elliott was the matchmaker for fellow Miami safety Brandon Jones back when both guys were at Texas, so there’s that, as well.
Fangio's Dolphins defense will be multi-faceted and schematically sound.
Getting the guy primarily responsible for the NFL’s new set of defensive trends was a coup for the Dolphins, and Fangio has said that he has come new wrinkles in store from his year off.
“There’s a few things that I came up with that I’m anxious to try,” Fangio said in March. “We’ll try them in OTAs at some point and then in training camp as a good fit for the other things we do. But what’s going to be most important is tailoring what we do to our players and to the opponent that we’re playing for that week. So there may be things that we did at previous stops that we won’t do much here because it doesn’t fit our players and vice versa; we might do something a lot that we didn’t do other places because it’s a better fit for our players. And sometimes it’s a better – you might think it’d be great to do something because it fits a certain player really good, but you really have to think about how it fits all 11 and what’s the best way to stop somebody from scoring too many points.”
No matter what Fangio puts on the field for his players to execute, it will be fascinating to watch — and in some cases, very different than what Dolphins fans have seen over the last few years.
