Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, a vocal Phillies fan, is throwing his best changeup.
With each passing week, Fangio has moved away from an early season strategy that called for an unusually high number of blitzes and more toward his comfort zone of leaning on the four-man rush.
For sure, the trade for Jaelan Phillips, the healthy return of Nolan Smith, the un-retirement of Brandon Graham and the continued development of second-year pro Jalyx Hunt has helped Fangio feel more comfortable about the state of his front four.
The Eagles have the NFL's fourth-most sacks since their bye week. Graham just had two sacks against the Raiders despite playing only seven snaps. Phillips has one sack in six games since Miami traded him to Philly and reunited him with Fangio, but he's batted passes at the line in consecutive weeks and had two QB hits against the Raiders.
While the pressure is ratcheting up, Fangio's blitz rate keeps dropping, including a grand total of one extra-man pass rush against the Raiders on 29 pass attempts Sunday in a 31-0 blowout to snap a three-game losing streak.
On Las Vegas' opening drive, Fangio sent linebacker Nakobe Dean as an extra rusher on 2nd-and-11. Kenny Pickett climbed the pocket and hit rookie Jack Bech for 10 yards.
Here, enjoy:
Fangio didn't blitz again for the rest of the game, and that 10-yard reception would be tied for the Raiders' second-longest play of the game. The Eagles allowed a comical average of 1.0 yards per pass.
Compare Fangio's 7% percent blitz rate against the Raiders to the near 30-percent rate he was blitzing at earlier in the season. It's not even in the same stratosphere.
Outside of a blitz-heavy game Week 13 against the Bears, Fangio's blitz percentage since has plunged. Here are the rates since the bye week, per NFL Pro:
| Week/Opponent | Blitz Rate |
| Week 15 vs. Raiders | 6.5% |
| Week 14 @ Chargers | 9.8% |
| Week 13 vs. Bears | 35% |
| Week 12 @ Cowboys | 12.5% |
| Week 11 vs. Lions | 12.8% |
| Week 10 @ Packers | 9.5% |
Different analytics websites track blitz rates differently. Some chart "SIM pressures," in which a second-level player (LB, DB) will rush the passer while a front-level player (iDL, Edge, DE) drops into coverage, as a blitz even though it's still a four-man pressure. Other sites only chart blitzes as rushes of five or more defenders.
Either way, both NFL Pro and profootballreference.com have the Eagles blitz rate presently at around 19 percent – which ranks dead last per NFL Pro and sixth per profootballreference.
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Either way, that's a major deviation from earlier this year, when he blitzed Matthew Stafford on 41% of the Rams quarterback's dropbacks and 29% against the Chiefs in Week 3, and much closer to last year's rate of 19.3%, fifth-lowest in the league.
Last week, leading up the Raiders game, Fangio was asked if Dean's blitzing acumen causes him to think about dialing it up more. His answer was revealing about his recent trend.
"Yeah, I mean, it's like anything. You want to do it when you feel it's necessary and not because you have to,." he said. "I feel confident that when we rush any of our ILBs, which we do, we mix it up, we’ve got a chance."
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