Eagles

Vic Fangio and Steve Spagnuolo Were Having a Blitz-Off in Kansas City

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Sep 15th, 2025 · 12:37 PM EDT

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Let’s get it back to the Eagles’ win over the Chiefs with some stats:

The Chiefs blitzed Jalen Hurts on 16 of his 25 dropbacks (64.0%), their highest blitz rate under DC Steve Spagnuolo (since 2019).

Hurts minimized pressure with a 2.11-second time to throw against the blitz, quickest of his career (min. 10 attempts).#PHIvsKC | #FlyEaglesFly pic.twitter.com/knvh0g0mFu

— Next Gen Stats (@NextGenStats) September 15, 2025

The Eagles defense did not blitz once in the Super Bowl last season.

They blitzed 11 times on Sunday, per @TruMediaSports.
The 19.3% blitz percentage was the highest since Vic Fangio's been the Eagles' defensive coordinator. They blitzed on 28.9% of dropbacks, which was the…

— Zach Berman (@ZBerm) September 15, 2025

RE: the first tweet, you figured that Jalen would eventually connect on one of those jump balls if Spags was going to keep sending the house. The big completion to DeVonta Smith was the catalyst for reaching the goal line and tush pushing for the game-winning TD.

On the Eagles’ side, you know that Vic Fangio never blitzes. The Birds had the NFL’s second-lowest blitz rate in 2024, sending five or more bodies on only 18% of drop backs. Only the Jag-wires blitzed at a lower percentage. Fangio didn’t blitz Patrick Mahomes once in the Super Bowl, if you can believe it.

Zach has a different data set than we do, but for some context using Sportradar, Fangio’s highest blitz total as Eagles DC was the Washington road loss, when Hurts was knocked out of the game and Kenny Pickett came in. Perhaps the circumstances of getting into a dogfight with Jayden Daniels was the catalyst for blitzing 15 times at a 36.6% rate. The highest percentage of blitzing took place in the Cleveland game, when they got after Deshaun Watson during 11 dropbacks for a 39.3% clip.

Closer to the average, that 18% number, the Birds blitzed Dallas six times at Jerry World and blitzed the Jags six times at home.

There were actually five games in which they blitzed either once or zero times total, the Super Bowl being one of those games. The other four were the Giants road win (didn’t blitz at all), and the Pittsburgh, Washington, and Green Bay home games (just one blitz in each game).

So yeah, this was an outlier from both defensive coordinators. Blitz or be blitzed!