PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - Eagles football nerdery: How does Jihaad Campbell change Vic Fangio's defense

Episode Date: August 28, 2025

Jihaad Campbell figures to complement Zack Baun well in Vic Fangio's defense, but how exactly will he be deployed? From covering tight ends to changing the defensive front to affecting coverage in the middle of the field, Campbell can do a lot. A mysterious Vic Fangio appreciator breaks it all down in depth. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Okay, it is time now to get really deep into the football guy weeds of exactly how we expect Jihad Campbell to change the way that Vic Vanjo plays on defense this year. And so we welcome in. You got to be a little bit mysterious about this. We have a mystery Vic Fangio enthusiast who you may follow as wannabe GM on social media. Mr. Mystery, thank you for taking the time. And his mystery dog is also in the background. Okay, we like that. Let's get into this because, listen,

the Eagles had very high quality linebacker play last year with Nicopi Dean and Zach Bonn. But Jehad Campbell is here. We expect he's going to start and play all the time from week one. Before we get into the specifics, when the Eagles drafted Jehad Campbell, how excited were you as a Fangio loyalist or appreciator about what this might mean? I was in a bit of shock for about a minute or two. Early in the draft process, I watched maybe three or four of his tapes,

and I felt he was the best off-ball linebacker prospect. I've seen arguably in the draft in the last couple seasons. And I just assumed he was off the board by the Eagles pick. I didn't know that injury concerns were dropping him. So I was pretty excited once the shock settled. Yeah. It was a nice, pleasant surprise. And as we talk here on the Xfinity mobile call-in line,

give us just a little bit of background without too many specifics. You know, don't give it away. But how did you come to be so all-knowing about big fan defense? All-knowing is a strong word. I feel like more of an X's-Nose defensive enthusiast. I've been a lifelong Eagles fan, lived in the Philadelphia area in my whole life. I've been, you know, a big draft fan, followed Fran's work and yours work. Never heard of it.

For years. Okay. And a big fan of the draft and followed that. And then I started to get, you know, more interested in the defensive side of the ball and the X's and O's. And I've just been picking every scrap I can just on the Internet when I can find it. I don't know if I'm allowed to talk about other podcasts here, but I learned a lot from Coach Vass, Chris Vassore. He's a consultant for, you know, multiple levels of football, including professional. I followed him and interacted with him occasionally.

I've learned he helped spark my interest in defense, and I learned a great deal from him. And, you know, I just pick up the Fangio scraps wherever I can find him. All right. Well, let's get into this on Jahad Campbell, who is a new chess piece for Fangio, and it starts, in your opinion, with what he can do against tight ends. So what is different about Jehad Campbell for the Seagull's defense?

Yeah, so when I saw Jehazs, tape, a lot of people around draft time were excited about him as a pass rusher, and I can understand that. We're all used to the Andy Reid, you know, position pyramid that, how he swears by, and expected, you know, a pass rusher in the first round as opposed to an offball linebacker, and he does have pass rush snaps and pass rush experience in his background, so I understand why people were excited about that. But when I watched the tape, what kind of left off the screen to me was less his pass rush

ability, which was nice, by the way. But it was more his pursuit and space and his ability to cover as a linebacker. Both times, I watched maybe 8 to 10 games, 8 to 12 games, and several times he popped off the screen in terms of how much space he could cover

to tackle and how and his combination of length and explosiveness to get past breakups when matched up and coverage against tight ends. and even in a wide receiver versus a wide receiver a couple times.

Now, those examples during those games were few and far between, but they were enough to really raise my eyebrow. I'm quite confident that it raised Vick's eyebrow as well. Now, as far as the tight end aspect, in these times when he was matched up with receivers and made some big plays, some of them were against tight ends.

Frankly, most of the tight ends he covered in college, he completely outmatched. They weren't open. even when they looked open, essentially. So that makes me think that he may provide some more matchup coverage options in terms of matching tight ends, which obviously is important for man defense, because in man defense sometimes you want to take your weak safety,

the safety away from passing streak strength, usually read Blankenship last year. You want to take that safety sometimes in cover one, and instead of having him cover the tight end in man, you'd rather have him rob crossers over the middle. which we'll get into later, robbing Frosters is a big aspect of the Fangio scheme. But I digress.

So if you want to free up that weak safety, one of the things you can do when you play man coverage is you play man on the tight end. Now, obviously, Jihad could do that in a lot of matchups. There remains to be seen exactly how good he is at it, but I'm confident enough to say from the limited sample size I saw, excuse me, that I saw he can definitely cover the majority of tight ends in the NFL. one-on-one.

So we did have some match-up issues with Mike Zicki last year. I don't know if you remember that when we faced the Bengals. He was catching the ball all over the yard on us. Yeah, like 10 catches, yeah. Yeah, he was too mobile for Reed Blankenship, and he was too large for our defensive backs. He even caught one on Quinyan. And we, you know, I don't want to lose Bonn for other aspects of coverage.

he can cover a tight end but he can do other things great too and having jihad as another option to cover the tight end just you know it's just another body type we can throw at that position I know later in the year we had a couple issues with urts as well I know cjjj had a lot of some issues in the red zone with tight ends nicobi dean has some issues with tight ends so having a different body type that can that can match that up for not only in man coverage, but other coverage as well,

could be very helpful for the scheme. EJ, you, I mean, you watched all of training camp this summer. How did he look covering tight ends to you? Yeah, I think he looked at his best when he was asked to do those types of jobs in the middle of the field. I think he struggled sometimes matched up against running backs and man coverage, which is obviously a tough assignment for a linebacker. So, no, I think that you raise some really good points here, Mr. Mystery, about, you know,

Maybe some ways, some ways, some ways that the Eagles can improve from last year's defense, as we do expects maybe some regression in some other areas. So honestly, I'm excited to get into the slides. I want to see some, some visualizations of how Jahad Campbell maybe can improve the Eagles lineback and core and defense as a whole. All right. Well, let's get out of the field. Let's get all to it. The middle of the field coverage here, one that we start with Julia. We've got here against the Bengals in the middle of the field.

I think this is against Jammar Chase, but you tell me what Jihad Campbell is bringing to the table here. Julia, this is number three. Okay, so I mentioned the man, the pure man coverage aspect of him covering the tight end, but there's other ways, you know, Vic can have the tight end be matched by the weak safety or the linebacker or a defense vent sometimes

in a number of different coverages. And having this ability for Jihad to match the tight end, increases the repertoire from which Vic can, you know, draw upon for his game plan. And this is important when facing a dominant receiver. For example, here's Jamar Chase. Now, if you're playing your regular quarters, now let me back up a second. If you look at both safeties, top and bottom of the screen, they're basically quarters depth, quarters width, width, safeties.

C.J. G.J. at the top of the screen is coming down to poach the crossword. from Jamar Chase. Now, in regular quarters, the underneath coverage guys are in zone. They're not matching in man. And as a result, if the tight end goes vertically on a route, if they go downfield, past linebacker level on a route, that weak safety, who is CJGJ in this example, would have to pick up that tight end and cover them in man.

And then you lose the ability of having that safety poach, the crosser from the dangerous wide receiver going across the field. this will come in handy twice a year when we play CD Lamb in the slot you know in theory versus the Cowboys so one way to ensure now Vic has multiple ways to free up that week safety to poach robbers

I'm sorry to poach crossers but one way to ensure on a money down that that safety will be freed up is instead of playing quarters with zone underneath you can play quarters with man underneath and as you can see that Jemar Chase is being covered in man.

The tight end at the top of the screen is being covered in man by Bonn. Nicole Bedeen has the running back in man. As a result, C.J. G.J. is available to come down to the middle of the field, and Joe Burroughs sees that, and he doesn't even attempt this pass with an anticipatory throw over the middle. Okay, let's go to the next slide, Julia. This is number four. This is against the Cowboys.

This is from Fangio's Dolphins defense. And what do we need to know here? So this is the regular quarters. And unfortunately, in the regular quarters, once that tight end goes vertical, you see circled at the top of the screen, the weak safety has to take them. So I had the weak safety arrow pointing at the tight end, who he's about to take in coverage,

as opposed to the dangerous receiver in the slot from the opposite side of the field. As you can see at the bottom of the screen, circled is C.D. Lamb. He's the dangerous receiver, the dominant receiver coming from the slot area, from the opposite side of the field, you lose the ability to poach with that weak safety. And as a result, if C.D. Lamb keeps running across the middle, there is going to be an opening over the middle

in between the zone for DAC to lay that in, and he will lay that in. You want to place a man coverage against D.C. and the Cowboys, and you want to free up that poach safety to take away C.D. Lamb whenever you can. I feel like I'm learning. Yeah, absolutely. So having, James Lame,

Jihad obviously increases, it should, in my opinion, increase Fangeo's comfortability with going man underneath and guaranteeing that that poach safety is going to be freed up. We've spent so much time this summer talking about how having Zach Bonn and Jihad Campbell, being able to mirror them on opposite sides of the field, we'll open things up for Vick Fancho. And this feels like a very tangible example of what he offers you in these match coverages and, you know, when you play a man underneath those covers.

Okay, let's move on. Tell me about three match. Sure. So three match is a big Fangio call. He plays it a lot. It might be his number one call. I'm not certain. I don't follow the statistics. It's certainly, if it's not as number one call, it's certainly close to it. And he likes to use it on early downs. I call them neutral downs where it could be run or pass. It's basically fan geo's answer to three zone, which will get. into later in this conversation. Instead of playing three zone to get more guys in the box, he plays a match version called three match, which the majority of the time is actually the way after the routes disperse, it's going to look a lot like cover one man, even though it's not exactly that. Now, if you notice I have the two linebackers circled in his most common version of three match, you'll see both linebackers sort of sag back and fan outward towards the sidelines a little bit. And what they're doing is As you can see, with both receivers going across the field, they provide temporary

disturbance in the force for the quarterback where he doesn't look, it doesn't look like those guys are open. But this could just be temporary because these linebackers also, after they fan out, they then have to sail back down to the running back in the flats. Now, Nikobie at times did struggle with this. He was a smart defender. He's a good defense. He's a good pass coverage guy when he's playing downhill and making complicated decisions quickly.

He's not always the best guy going backwards and then covering a lot of ground and changing direction. Zach Bonn is. There's a ton of plays that are very forgettable from last season where Zach Bonn was in three match or quarters. He fanned out, he clogged up the passing lanes over the middle, and then he came down late and caught. the pass in the flats of the running back and, you know, kept it to a minimal gain a couple times he even forced some fumbles, if I remember correctly.

And Jehad Campbell, God Campbell obviously is also, as I mentioned in the beginning of this, his pursuit and space is good. In theory, he should have more athleticism to get out to those sidelines to get out to those flats than say in the Kobe Dean or your Trott Jr. Okay.

I specifically wanted to ask you about this, the versatility that Jahad Campbell and Zach Bonn both have to drop down to the edge, you know, pre-snap and change the front mechanics and, you know, switch to an odd front. I guess I'm curious from your, like, from your opinion, who do you think is better suited for that job and what makes Jehad Campbell, uh, capable of doing those types of things? They're both perfectly suited for it. I think it depends on other aspects within the coverage call. Um, so, you know, depending on a way, what the coverage call is behind it.

They might want Zach Bonn to be the linebacker sagged over towards trips formations. You know, the linebacker sagged over to the past history. Julia, flip up number seven here. That's exactly what we're talking about. Oh, okay. I'll get to that one. Yeah, so they, you know, they might want Zach Bonn to be involved in more advanced coverage mechanics.

And as a result, you know, you could have either of them or both of them together on the line of scrimmage, and then one drops back and takes one coverage assignment, the other one drops back and takes another. Having on certain five-man fronts they use, having jihad up on the line of scrimmage will free up on to be more like that Mike linebacker in coverage. This is an example of how what you're talking about, E.J.,

you can play with the fronts, and you can further confuse the quarterback. This is also a good example of how jihad could be used. to contain a mobile quarterback. Here you have a bond at the top of the screen. Oh, that defensive end, the young fellow, the rookie from last year. I can't remember. Jelix Hunt.

There you go. Jalick's at the bottom. And he chose Vic for this play call late in the game. He chose Jalick's Hunt on purpose for the edge to be the dropper. Because this is a more, I don't know if I want to say complicated, but more difficult coverage assignment for an edge dropper. what he normally calls, and Jellix has that safety experience in his background from years ago, and it does show when he drops in coverage.

Jelix is also more mobile and space than the other defensive ends, for the most part. You can argue Nolan Smith was more mobile, but he's mobile in space for a defensive end. So basically in this example, he had Nacobi, creeper pressure up the middle, only four guys ended up pressure on the quarterback, both edges dropped, and they sort of ratted the back, one, whichever side the running back went to, that linebacker would take it in coverage. The other linebacker would have eyes on crossers, and if there's no crossers,

they'd have eyes on the quarterback and act as sort of a spy. Now, this would obviously, now this is the Panthers, this quarterback is mobile, but he's not Jaden Daniels level mobile. Right. He's not, if we go to the Super Bowl, I should say when we go to the Super Bowl.

He's not when we go to the Super Bowl, Lamar Jackson Mobile. So instead of Jell, Hunt for this, who did do a good job on this example, maybe you'd want to have Zach Bonn at the top and instead of Jellickon at the bottom have Jehad Campbell. And you can have a third offball linebacker in the middle on the creeper pressure. Oh, I think we'll see that? Do I, I know we'll see that? You think we'll see that? You know, if you count Campbell as a linebacker, you think we'll see that? I guarantee at times this season throughout the season, you will see three linebackers

in the field. The only question is how often you will see it. Now, we will be a change up like in this example yes he will do that as a change up like in this example will it be a mainstay maybe not i think it should they certainly have to that a little later in this conversation but that's that's just my opinion i don't know if that'll be big fangio's opinion well i mean listen you think about where they're weak they're weak on the edge depth right now um and so if you're just in service of getting the best players on the field especially when nikobie dean is back healthy yeah that seems reasonable to me yeah no it's a creative way to get all those guys on the field too.

Okay. Yeah. Now, you speak about those mobile quarterbacks, and it's not just those guys dropping. They could also use him as like faking, bringing pressure, but actually spying the quarterback, like we have the next one eight, Julia. This is against the Panthers. Yeah. So there were two five-man pressures late in the game against the Panthers. One was a chase down from Jalick Hunt for like a gain of like a yard or two.

I can't remember exactly. And the other was an incompletion. I think the completion to end the game. And on both of these five-man pressures, I should back up a second and say, Vic is more likely to go to five-man pressures in late stages of the game when he's up against it, or especially against the mobile quarterback.

The reason why is it's easier to provide pressure against the quarterback without allowing escape lanes for the quarterback to run for positive yardage. Obviously, that's a big deal. And I guarantee that part of the way that Vick sold this to to Howie Roseman, who probably got a pain in one of his organs at the idea of drafting a linebacker in the first round.

Sure. I guarantee that one of the ways that Vic sold this to Howie was look, we told Dayton Daniels twice a year. That's true. And you can't just send four or five guys at them. You've got to have a combination of contain rushes, a combination of spy rushes,

and some of aggressive elements as well within those rushes and you got to mix it up and you gotta have guys at the second level or on the rush who are fast enough in space and again that ties back to what I said in the beginning Jihad Campbell what jumped off of the screen to me was some of his pursuit

ability in space. You gotta have guys at that first and second level that can chase down a Jaden Daniels or other mobile quarterbacks when they inevitably escape the pocket. On this example, on both of these late rushes I'm referring to Zach Bond was the fifth guy.

On the first rush, he came hard and aggressively while the two defensive tackles, Maro Jomo and Jalen Carter, did a less aggressive, how can I say it, tackle, tackle stunt. And it was less aggressive because it was more about taking away the escape lanes

and not about getting upfield. And it worked because Adjomo actually chased him out of bounds or maybe made a short tackle. I can't remember which. On the second one, with the line expecting this time with Zach Bond's simming pressure and up on the line of scrimmage on this second play that you guys just showed, Bonn comes again. And the left guard assumes, obviously, oh, he's coming aggressively again. And he connects briefly with that left guard. But he connects briefly and simulates this pressure only to occupy that left guard so that this time the non-aggressive stunt to the left with our defensive tackles could become an aggressive.

aggressive stunt, and this time a Jomo aggressively wrapped around Jelen Carter's pick, pressured the quarterback, and they forced the incompletion to end the game. And after Zach Bond made this contact here with the left guard, he then backed off and became the spy. And once the quarterback escaped the pocket, he then applied late pressure of the quarterback, forcing the incompletion. So obviously, how's your ball recognition? Do you recognize that play when you see that still?

No, I don't have the photographic memory. But what I would say is what I do remember is watching Jehad Campbell cover space very uniquely throughout the summer. And it's interesting because I do feel like he is a unique player in certain aspects. And what stands out most about him are some of the things we're talking about today. You know, the range that he has to contain a quarterback. There aren't many linebackers that if he told me, they have to be the spy for Jaden Daniels and they have to, you know, they have to do two jobs. You know, they're going to have to, you know, take on an offensive lineman,

but also be able to break away and chase down a quarterback. like that. I do feel like Jihad Campbell has the physical traits to be able to do that. And again, it's another example of what his unique skill set offers Vic Fangio. Absolutely. Even in four down, not just five down, sim pressures like that,

against Jaden Daniels specifically, I could see Jihad line up as a four down defensive end on some pass downs. And then they run a stunt to free him up where he becomes a late spy in the middle of the rush. I could certainly see that happening. Last thing is, as you also continue to dream about what

Fangio might do with him. Tell me about the condensed fronts and the concern about what you might do against three by ones if we pull up still nine here, Julia. Oh, I love these condensed fronts. The poor people follow me on Blue Sky, hear me talk about it every week. I gave them like a month off recently.

So they're due. They're due. So. Well, why do you love them? Well, I love them because, well, one of the defenses I learned about was a defense from Northwest Missouri State where they play something called Husker Front

and I love the alignment hasn't studied that Northwest Pacific State real we all do that right here I love that I loved the alignment I fell in love with the defense and I was literally

like posting back when I was on X and I think even some players saw it suggesting we got to do this it'll free up Brandon Graham to be more Brandon Graham Graham instead of being that wide alignment, let him go north and south a little more, get them thicker on the offensive tackle. I don't think that's why they did this in the end.

I was quite pleasantly surprised when as early as game one I saw Vic Fangio using a study of diet of this throughout the regular season. It was actually a huge change up for the defense that you would call a handful plays every game. Now, I think the genesis of this front for Fangio is he's somewhat famous for his six man front that he used against the Rams a few years ago when the Rams went to the Super Bowl. Yes, of course. Yeah. The coach for the Patriots, Belichick, Belichick, I should say.

Yeah, Bella sheet. He copied that success that Vic displayed earlier in the season with the sixth man front stifling that run attack, and he used his version, the 6-1 tilt. It's a slightly different version, but six defensive linemen, and one stack linebacker in the middle. and obviously it worked and they won the Super Bowl thanks to that X's an O play goal to a large extent. Now, Fangio, if you remember the Saints game early this season, he'll whip this out the six-man front

on short-yardage plays, on goal-line plays, but against the Saints, since they were such a run heavy team just like the Rams were a few years back, he used it all-game long, not I shouldn't say all-game long, heavily throughout the game. Five-man odd fronts, the six-man, They're called the Buffalo Front is what Fangio calls it. And also he, I noticed something that startled me a little bit.

It was a modified version of his six-man front where the defensive, it looked like there was five-down linemen, but really there was four down linemen with spacing very similar to a six-man front. The fifth down guy was Zach Bonn, as he saw in that image. The sixth guy, the defensive end, was missing. Instead, he was Cooper DeGine, walked out covering the number two receiver. and I don't know what Van Gio calls it. I just call it condensed fronts.

It's obviously some sort of modified version of his six-man buffalo front. He used this with so much success throughout the season. But what I already knew from Northwest Missouri State was the weakness in this two-by-two formation, the weakness in this defensive setup, this structure, I should say, is that when you go away from two-by-two formation to an overloaded side, three receivers one side or maybe even flood aside with four receivers, it doesn't hold up. You got to move somebody because too many people are too far away from all the receivers. If you can bring up that picture one more time, I'll explain further.

Not too much, not too long before everybody loses their attention span. So as you can see, there's a receiver floating over to the other side. They're forming a three-by-one formation. And I have one, two, three defenders at the bottom of the screen numbered, all against one tight end. Right. And this is not good because you lose your plus one advantage in coverage. Now you end up with three guys at the top of the screen, not even counting the running back.

If he goes out faster that side, you then have four. You have three receivers at the top of the screen with CJGJ covering that receiver from 15 to 20 yards away. Not good, Jan. Not good. So late in the season, late in the season, a couple teams. I think the Steelers did it, and then the Redskins copied it one week later here. realized, okay, we can overload. When they get in this front, we can overload to the three-by-one set,

throw a quick screens pass to either receiver or running back, and we're going to get positive yardage. And they did, and Fangio was forced to get out of this. Now, the reason why this all ties into Jahad Campbell, whether it's Jahad Campbell or Zach Bonn down on the line scrimmage or at that mic position in this particular setup, I don't particularly care. It's just the fact that you have two speedy linebackers who can cover.

They can either man cover a tight end or they can get involved with other aspects of coverage. And you can't, Vic can't stay on three by one because he has all these defenders on one side of the field. So he's going to have to take somebody either the cornerback and have them follow the receiver, which he will not do. That's a non-starter. Or to have the safety play single high and come down to the box so he's not 15, 20 yards away, which he will not do. he prefers to keep that too high pre-snap disguise or I think the most likely possibility and I think the addition of Jihad Campbell

creates this possibility because of the increased speed you could have Zach Vaughn follow the third receiver over to the other side of the last scrimmage he essentially plays the role then of what the mic would fill in verse trips which he did frequently throughout the season last year

and he was excellent at it and even though you don't have that guy at the edge you still versus the one receiver's side, you still have a cornerback over there, you still have a safety over there, you still have a defensive end, just lined up just outside the offensive tackle shoulder.

And your Mike, instead of being the Kobe Dean, is now going to be another speedster. It's going to be Jahad Campbell. And if it turns into a wide run to that edge that Zach Bond vacates, Jahad Campbell should be able to run it down whereas No Kobe Dean wasn't able to. So I'm hoping,

the addition of Jihad Campbell I'm sending out like carrier pigeons of Vic Fangio I'm hoping the addition That's probably what he uses Yeah Probably got a stable They probably provide him as analytics

I'm hoping that the addition of Jihad Campbell will make Fangio be willing to have Zach Bonn travel with this third receiver and as a result they'll be able to stay in this excellent condensed formation more often that they had so much success with throughout the season.

All right. I feel right for week one. Yeah, I'm about saying this. Right out. Let's go. It's come Friday. Breakdown as you're going to get right. A day after.

Okay. Well, thank you so much. Whoever you are, probably, you can call me want to be. That works. Maybe it's Vic Fangio with one of those like voice modified. You never know. It could be.

We don't know. Thank you so much for elucidating all of this. for us. Now we're even more excited about Jahad Campbell in Philadelphia.