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Fangio vs. Mangini

  • Arpan Bajaj 49ersHub Writer @RPun
  • Sep 17, 2015
  • 5 min read

Fangio vs. Mangini Will Eric Mangini be able replicate the success of Vic Fangio and how will he do so without all the talent? When Vic Fangio came over to the 49ers from Stanford as part of Jim Harbaugh’s Staff in 2011, 49ers fan’s heads were rightfully filled with visions of the Dome Patrol that terrorized Joe Montana and Steve Young in the late 1980’s and Early 1990’s. Vic Fangio was the LB Coach on those New Orleans Saints teams and was credited with the development of what is considered the best LB core in the history of football. Many fans envisioned a high pressure, athletic, multi-faceted Defense led by Patrick Willis that flew to the ball and made quarterbacks shake in their boots. Even though at this point the rest of the LB core (Aldon Smith, Ahmad Brooks, and Navorro Bowman) was unknown, the secondary was suspect, and the D-line a question mark. Many fans pined for a D that no longer played “Bend but don’t break” of the Nolan and Singletary days, but instead took the game to the offense. Well a funny thing happened: The D-line became Solid, The secondary filled with hard hitters and opportunists, and the afore mentioned LB core became one of the best to ever play the game and earned the right to be mentioned in the same sentence as Fangio’s famed “Dome Patrol”. As part of this development the 49ers developed multiple All-Pros on the Defensive side of the ball during Fangio’s tenure, and with such high amounts of individual skill and brilliance from these players: the vision of a high pressure, athletic, multi-faceted Defense faded away. Only to give light to the Man under, Cover 2 Shell, don’t get beat deep, rally and tackle D, that became so successful with the 49ers from 2011-2014. When Eric Mangini took over the 49ers Defensive Coordinator position as part of Jim Tomsula’s Staff in 2014, many 49ers fan’s questioned whether or not the team had enough talent left after the mass exodus of player in the off season to replicate Fangio’s scheme. Some fans though once again had their heads filled with visions of the Gang Green D that “Mangenious” created with the New York Jets that terrorized Tom Brady in the mid 2000’s. These fans envisioned a high pressure, athletic, multi-faceted Defense led by Navarro Bowman that flew to the ball and made quarterbacks shake in their boots. Even though at this point the rest of the LB core (Aaron Lynch, Ahmad Brooks, and Michael Wilhoite) was largely unknown, the secondary was suspect, and the D-line a question mark after losing so many players. After Week 1 of the NFL season, the fans who yearned for a Defense who attacked instead of reacting may have finally got their wish. In Fangio’s D scheme a base 3-4 morphed into a 2-4-5 nickel and once in a while a 2-3-6 Dime on passing downs and rarely did anything that would surprise you. Based upon the individual brilliance of having Patrick Willis and Navorro Bowman on the field and the same time, along with the pass rush games of the Smith Brothers; Fangio felt that his “basic” scheme could account for anything an offense could throw at them without needing to do anything exotic. Largely static before the snap, 4 men would rush the passer (J Smith, McDonald, A. Smith, Brooks), the secondary would play soft coverage on the outside with the safeties in a 2 deep shell look and not give up the big play, and Willis and Bowman would take care of the backs and TEs, blow up running lanes, and tackle everything and anything that was carrying a ball on the football field. Substitutions were minimal and players played heavy minutes. After spending some time watching the game tape of Mangini’s approach in game one we can expect to see a few new things as the season goes on. Substitution packages are going to be instrumental to the D, and personnel are going to be on a constant change. It was not an uncommon sight to see 4-5 players run on and off the field after each play on D to match up with the down, distance, and personnel that the offense brought in. In fact unless you had Bowman, Reid, Bethea, or Brock on the back of your jersey you were liable to be subbed at any time. The next easy change to see is the formation concepts were multiple in their approach: Standard 3-4, a 3-3-5 Nickel, a 2-4-5 Nickel, a 3-3-5 Big Nickel (3 Safeties) a 2-3-6 Dime, a 2-3-6 Big Dime (3 Safeties), and a 1-3-7 Big Quarter (4 Safeties). The multiplicity of these personnel and formation packages meant that the QB had to account for each player pre snap and see how the D had counteracted their own personnel changes. Finally the 2 main visible differences in the Mangini Defense were the pre snap movement and blitz packages. Regular sights in the Monday night game, were defenders rushing to the line of scrimmage in a blitz show look and either bailing to a coverage responsibility or shooting a gap for a blitz. Sometimes players would show blitz on one side only to see another player from the other side attack the quarterback, or a player to blitz a gap only to tie up a blocker so a diffent player could attack the same gap on a delay. The highlight of Monday night’s game against the Vikings was the amount of free runners schemed up that were getting to Teddy Bridgewater. All of this led to 5 sacks by 5 different players and many more pressures on the QB. A lot of this scheme is predicated on Bowman’s ability to time a blitz, Reid and Bethea’s ability to show at the LOS and still get back to their coverage responsibilities and rookie 2nd pick Jaquiski Tartt versatility to play Nickel/Dime LB. All together this added up to amoeba like D pre-snap with lots of movement, tons of unpredictability and even more pressure getting in the QB’s face and disrupting the timing of the throws; an extremely exciting and fun version of defense to watch. Whether or not this style is the game plan every week for Eric Mangini is still yet to be seen. And will he be so aggressive against more veteran Qb’s is a question still to be answered, although we should get a view into that when the 49ers face Big Ben and the Pittsburgh Steelers this Sunday. And yes this D may not have the same amount pure talent that Fangio’s D had, but their versatility and scheme may make up for it. Either way 49ers fans who yearned for years for a high pressure, athletic, multi-faceted Defense that flew to the ball and made quarterbacks shake in their boots; may finally have had their prayers been answered by the brain of Eric Mangini.


 
 
 

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