Vic Fangio, back with the Denver Broncos? Here’s why it might make sense

Let’s say that you’re an NFL team looking for a coordinator. You’ve got resumes of varying success and experience.

Then, you get one that is three pages. And this CV isn’t padded with phony accomplishments — it’s LEGIT.

In front of you is a coordinator whose units finished in the league’s top 10 in seven of the last 12 years. A coordinator who’s had top-10 defenses with five different clubs.

And when it came to total points, his units were in the top 10 in eight of his last 11 seasons coaching — including a rank of No. 3 in 2021.

Furthermore, this coach’s concepts are borrowed far and wide around the NFL. This isn’t just a coach; this is a guru. His smartphone burns white-hot with coaches and proteges seeking his counsel.

Sounds like a no-brainer, right? This candidate MUST get the job.

Congratulations, you just hired Vic Fangio to be your defensive coordinator.

Sound crazy for the Broncos?

Perhaps.

But believe it or not, this very scenario could play out in the coming weeks.

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VIC, BOOK II?

If the Broncos hire Jim Harbaugh or Sean Payton to be their next head coach, there is a very real chance that Fangio could return in a role subservient to the position he held from 2019-21.

The connections to Harbaugh are deep. Fangio was his defensive coordinator at Stanford in 2010. Then, he held the same position with the San Francisco 49ers in the following four seasons. In each of those NFL years together, the 49ers had a top-5 defense. Fangio also served two years in Baltimore as an assistant under Jim’s brother John Harbaugh, although a verbal kerfuffle in 2021 after the Ravens ran the football on the last play of a win over the Broncos — which led to Fangio saying it “was kind of bulls***, but I expected it from them” — might have napalmed that particular connective tissue.

Fangio doesn’t possess the same history with Payton. But on Christmas Eve, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that Payton wants to create an “all-star staff” — one that specifically could include Fangio as a defensive coordinator.

And now, with a Jim Harbaugh interview already in the can and a potential interview with Payton next week, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that Fangio could return to the Broncos.

Of course, it would be to the position he handled so brilliantly for so long. The job that would have him back in the coaches’ box above the field, the view from which he admitted he was more comfortable calling a game.

To be certain, he’d be in the smaller office — although the coordinators’ digs at UCHealth Training Center still have nice views.

And when he walks into the defensive meeting room, he’d look around and see up to 17 players who once saw him as a head coach, but would now see him a rung below on the coaching-staff pyramid.

That would be awkward, no doubt.

And it might be too much to overcome. A bruised ego can be real.

Unlike when former Broncos head coach Wade Phillips returned to the Broncos in 2015 as an assistant after 20 seasons away, generations haven’t passed.

But what if this isn’t an issue for Fangio?

Because if it’s not, the complexion of the argument changes.

Perhaps the most analogous example is that of the late Gunther Cunningham. He had a .500 record as Kansas City’s head coach from 1999-2000. But he returned after three seasons away, hired by then-coach Dick Vermeil to revive Kansas City’s fading defense. Cunningham took a defense that ranked 29th and steadily improved it to 13th by his fourth season.

Phillips and Cunningham — like Fangio — became renowned, respected defensive sages. They coordinated defenses past the age at which people can collect Social Security. One expects that Fangio will, too. Defensive minds seem to become cagier, wiser and more effective with the passage of time.

So, ponder for a moment that the pasta and meatballs could return to the Broncos.

All things considered, it just might work as part of a tasty meal the likes of which they haven’t had in years.

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