The Miami Dolphins and Vic Fangio mutually agreed to part ways last week, and there were reports a big reason was that he wanted to move back to Pennslyvania and be closer to his 94-year-old mother. Senior NFL Reporter of TheMMQB Albert Breer reports that Vic Fangio’s departure from Miami wasn’t exactly voluntary.
Breer is reporting, “So while Fangio may have wanted to go to Philadelphia all along, his departure from Miami wasn’t exactly voluntary. And my sense is whoever’s next (former Chargers coach Brandon Staley meets with the Dolphins on Sunday) will have to employ a more collaborative style, plus mesh better with stars such as Jalen Ramsey.”
Breer gave some background on the time-line last year that led Fangio to Miami. Breer said, “The Eagles announced their hiring of Fangio on Saturday night and thus ended what really was a two-year courtship of the former Broncos coach from Philadelphia. Through 2022, the team did everything but have Fangio measure out an office to line him up as their contingency plan, in the event Jonathan Gannon bolted for a head coaching job. Officially, he served as a “consultant.”
All of that came apart simply due to timing. Gannon did land a job with Arizona, but that didn’t crystallize until just before last year’s Super Bowl, which was well after Fangio agreed to take the Dolphins job, at $4.65 million per year. Fangio went to Miami, and the Eagles turned to Sean Desai instead.
Since, Desai and Fangio have both effectively been fired. The former was first stripped of play-calling, then dismissed. The latter’s situation was messier. Fangio’s one-voice approach to running the defense wore on other coaches—an example being that he didn’t allow position coaches to present their work to the defense, instead gathering information from them and doing it himself. That sort of approach is decidedly old school, and seeped through to players who, by the end of the season, started to tune Fangio out.”
We may never know why Fangio and the Dolphins agreed to part ways mutually, but the decision may have been 100% Miami’s to move on, and Vic and his people are using the “move closer to home” story to save face publically.
