It was Week 14, and the high-flying 11-1 Los Angeles Rams were heading to an icy-cold Soldier Field to take on the 8-4 Chicago Bears on Sunday Night Football.
Despite the Bears boasting the league’s best defense, led by defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, the Rams were as high as 3.5-point favorites throughout the week. The over-under, leaning towards the Rams explosive offense, was set at 51.5. The only time the Rams had lost was when the New Orleans Saints outscored them in a 45-35 shootout. Most of the NFL world expected L.A. to keep it rolling.
What they got on that early December night was a wakeup call to all who thought the offensive explosion of 2018 was going to roll all the way through the playoffs.
Final Score: 16-5, Bears.
Jared Goff: 20-44 for 180 yards and four interceptions.
Todd Gurley: 11 carries for 28 yards.
Sean McVay: Outmatched.
An absolute beatdown.
It was Vic Fangio’s Magnum Opus in 2018, the game that started the “elite defense” talk around the Bears, the game that really put Fangio on the radar as a head coach candidate. He countered the new wave of NFL offense to perfection.
On the Rams’ sideline that night was safeties coach Ejiro Evero, who was on the San Francisco 49ers staff from 2011 to 2014, the exact timeframe that Fangio served on the same staff.
Of course, the Rams took the loss on the chin and went on to make the Super Bowl, and shortly before they got clamped once again by the Patriots, who appeared to use Fangio’s plan as a blueprint, BSN Denver caught up with Evero to find out what Fangio did in Week 14 and much more.
“He’s always going to have a good plan, he’s always going to be well prepared,” Evero said of that night. “The years I was with him, he never fell short in that respect. Sometimes guys get their guys to play and execute at a higher level than others, you know? I think they had a really great day against us and that’s a credit to him and what kind of coach he is.
Fangio’s plan was a stroke of genius. He used variations of the vintage 6-1 defense to bring pressure on Goff, then later confused the QB by dropping the edge players into coverage, negating McVay’s strategy of reading the defense for the QB before the play. He used the impressive speed of his linebackers to take away the middle of the field, even using Khalil Mack as a weapon in that respect, taking away a favorite area for Goff and McVay. He committed to stopping the run and forced LA to throw the ball far more than they would like, taking away their deadly play-action game in the process.
“His strength as a defensive guy is taking advantage of people’s weaknesses from the offensive perspective and attacking those weaknesses,” Evero told BSN Denver.
That was evident as Fangio targeted Goff’s ability—or lack thereof—to diagnose coverages without the help of McVay in his ear.
When John Elway hired Fangio as the new head coach of the Denver Broncos, he certainly envisioned Fangio using that ability to suffocate offenses in Denver, but Evero brought up another quality that will be important in the new head coach’s learning curve.
“He’s an excellent teacher, very knowledgeable. He does a great job relating to the players and always gets the players to buy in for him because he truly cares about them,” he explained. “He’s just a true, true football coach who does a great job of taking care of his guys… He does such a great job of connecting and finding ways to connect with his guys. Even though he’s a lot older than all of them, he bridges that gap, and that’s what coaching is all about, connecting with your guys.”
If Fangio can combine that ability to exploit weaknesses with the ability to connect with his players, he’s going to have his guys buying in quickly, and that’s great news for the Broncos.
