Eagles Clips
Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio contemplated retirement after Philadelphia won Super Bowl LIX. A report this offseason indicated Fangio would step away after the playoff loss to the 49ers.
Fangio remains as the team’s defensive coordinator, and on Thursday he addressed the offseason rumors of his departure.
“No, I wasn’t close,” Fangio said, via video from NBC Sports Philadelphia. “I’ve had those thoughts the last few years. Every year at the end of the year I just think about it. I never really got serious to where I would have done it, and it was no different than I did after the ’24 season, after the ’23 season. I told the players the other day that we had our annual physical — we get physicals as coaches — and the docs told me I was reverse aging with my lab work and everything that came up. So, I told them, ‘You guys are stuck with me for a while, a long while.’”
Fangio, 67, began his NFL coaching career with the Saints in 1986. He was head coach of the Broncos for three seasons and has served as an NFL defensive coordinator for 22 seasons, going on 23.
He is entering his third season as the Eagles’ defensive coordinator, and Fangio said this won’t be his last despite his birth certificate telling him to “consider it.”
“I still like doing it,” Fangio said. “I like the group of guys we have. I like working with them. I still like the challenge of the job. Work for a good organization. It’s just something I think you’ll always think about at the end of the year. But in the end, I didn’t come close to doing it, and I really don’t foresee myself doing it [any time soon]. I’m good for two years at least.”
The Eagles have finished second and fifth in points allowed during Fangio’s two seasons with the team.
The Eagles will be using Cooper DeJean a little differently in their secondary this season.
DeJean usually played cornerback in the team’s base defense during the 2025 season, but defensive coordinator Vic Fangio said at a Thursday press conference that the plan is for him to be a safety in that alignment this season. DeJean would continue to be used out of the slot when the team is playing other looks.
Those other looks generally account for most of the defensive snaps each week, so the shift may not result in much of a difference for DeJean in the big picture. It does likely mean a big role for cornerback Riq Woolen, who signed with the Eagles as a free agent this offseason.
Andrew Mukuba is the top returning safety for the Eagles with Marcus Epps and Michael Carter also in the mix for playing time.
When initial characterizations of the recent arrest of Eagles linebacker Nolan Smith Jr. for speeding and reckless driving began to spread on social media, multiple accounts pegged his alleged speed at 137 miles per hour. Which seemed too high.
As it turns out, it was.
Via Tim McManus of ESPN, the Twiggs County Sheriff’s Office said Wednesday that Smith was allegedly driving 135 miles per hour.
Smith was driving in an area with a 70 mph speed limit.
The 2023 first-round pick posted bond shortly after the arrest. A court date has not yet been set.
It’s a ridiculously high rate of speed. It’s almost cartoonish. And even though there was no accident, it’s another example of a situation in which an NFL player has driven at the kind of speed that could easily get himself or someone else killed.
The league has yet to take the problem as seriously as it deals with off-field misconduct. And it probably won’t happen until one of these incidents results in the death of another person.
Chiefs receiver Rashee Rice was suspended six games for a street racing incident that resulted in multiple injuries. If no one had been injured, Rice surely would have ended up with a lighter punishment.
But the outcome isn’t the problem; it’s the behavior. Every time a player drives that fast, he’s playing Russian roulette with a two-ton bullet.
If the league is going to impose standards on a player’s actions away from work, this is an area that cries out for something more aggressive. Because it will send the kind of message that the players currently aren’t receiving.
Eagles linebacker Nolan Smith Jr. recently was arrested in Georgia for reckless driving and speeding.
At a time when unconfirmed accounts of the arrest were circulating on social media, E.J. Smith of PHLY Sports has confirmed that the mugshot of Smith is real. CBS affiliate WMAZ-TV also has confirmed the arrest.
The first account of the incident apparently came from The Georgia Gazette, which appears not to be an actual publication but a repository of arrest records and mugshots. The online entry includes Smith’s mugshot, his full name (Nolan Sental Smith), the date of the arrest (May 15, 2026) and the charges: “speeding in excess of maximum limits” and reckless driving.
Although various social-media accounts claim Smith was driving 137 miles per hour in a 70-mph zone, we have yet to find clear, reliable evidence of that specific allegation.
Smith was a first-round pick in the 2023 draft. He went to college at Georgia. The Bulldogs football program has had multiple incidents involving players who were cited for driving at excessive speed. Eagles defensive tackle Jalen Carter, also a first-round pick in the 2023 draft, pleaded no contest in April 2023 to misdemeanor charges of reckless driving and racing as a result of a January 2023 crash that resulted in the deaths of two people.
Eagles second-round pick Eli Stowers has signed his first NFL contract.
The team announced that Stowers finalized his four-year deal with the team on Monday. The tight end is the seventh member of the team’s 2026 draft class to agree to his contract.
Third-round offensive tackle Markel Bell is the only draft pick who is not yet under contract.
Stowers had 62 catches for 769 yards and four touchdowns at Vanderbilt last season. The former quarterback then impressed at the Scouting Combine by setting records for a tight end in the vertical leap and broad jump.
Dallas Goedert and Grant Calcaterra are the top returning tight ends in Philadelphia. They also signed Johnny Mundt and Stone Smartt as free agents earlier in the offseason.
We don’t know if Fernando Mendoza will be starting at quarterback for the Raiders in Week 1 of the regular season, but we do know who the Raiders will be playing in the first overall pick’s potential debut.
The NFL’s schedule reveal on Thursday night shows that the Raiders will host the Dolphins at 4:25 p.m. ET on Sunday, September 13. The game will be on Fox.
Mendoza will have to get the nod over Kirk Cousins in order to start for the Raiders. Offseason addition Malik Willis is expected to make his first appearance for the Dolphins. Both teams will definitely have head coaches making their offseason debut as Las Vegas hired Klint Kubiak in February and Miami hired Jeff Hafley in January.
Sunday will also feature a pair of divisional games in the late afternoon window. The Packers will visit the Vikings while the Commanders will be in Philadelphia to renew their acquaintance with the Eagles. The NFC North matchup will be on CBS while the NFC East clash will be broadcast by Fox.
The other late game on Sunday afternoon will see the Cardinals visiting the Chargers on CBS. Arizona could have Jacoby Brissett, Gardner Minshew or rookie Carson Beck at quarterback for that contest.
The 1 p.m. ET games will send the Bills to Houston for a date with the Texans while the Browns go on the road against the Jaguars. The Colts will host the Ravens, the Saints will visit the Lions, the Buccaneers will travel to Cincinnati for Dexter Lawrence’s first game as a Bengal, and the Steelers will kick off the Mike McCarthy era — with or without Aaron Rodgers — at home against the Falcons.
Previous reports revealed that the Jets will be in Tennessee and that the Bears will head to Charlotte to face the Panthers. The Jets-Titans game will be on CBS along with the Bills-Texans, Ravens-Colts and Browns-Jaguars games. All the other 1 p.m. games will be on Fox.
The entire Week 1 slate will kick off on Wednesday, September 9 with a Patriots-Seahawks Super Bowl rematch in Seattle on NBC. Thursday will bring a Netflix game between the 49ers and Rams in the NFL’s first game in Melbourne and Sunday night will find the Cowboys at MetLife Stadium to meet the Giants on NBC’s Sunday Night Football. Those games were all announced ahead of Thursday’s full schedule reveal, which was also the case for the ESPN Monday night game between the Broncos and Chiefs in Kansas City.
The Rams and Seahawks played three nail-biters during the 2025 season and the NFL is banking on another one on Christmas night.
The matchup of NFC West teams will cap a three-game slate on Christmas this year. The Friday night game on December 25 will take place in Seattle and it will be broadcast by Fox.
Los Angeles won 21-19 at home last November, but lost 38-37 in overtime in Seattle later in the regular season. The final meeting between the clubs came in the NFC Championship Game and was a 31-27 Seahawks win.
Netflix will kick off the day’s games with a doubleheader that starts with the Packers visiting the Bears at 1 p.m. ET. The Bills will be in Denver at 4:30 p.m. ET in a rematch of last season’s divisional round game that the Broncos won in overtime.
With Christmas Eve falling on a Thursday, there will also be a game on Amazon Prime Video that night. The Eagles will travel to Houston to face the Texans, so all four games around the Christmas holiday will feature matchups of teams that were in the playoffs last season.
The NFL announced the matchups for its first Thanksgiving Eve game and all three Thanksgiving games ahead of Thursday night’s schedule reveal, so the only thing left to announce for the three-day holiday spread of games was the Black Friday matchup.
That game will feature the Broncos visiting the Steelers in a game that will start at 3 p.m. ET. The game will be broadcast on Amazon Prime Video.
It will be the first time that either franchise has played a Black Friday game. The NFL first held a game on the day after Thanksgiving in 2023 and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has said that the league is considering ways to add a second game.
That is what they’ve done with the Thanksgiving Eve game. It will involve the Packers visiting the Rams on Wednesday night in a game broadcast by Netflix.
Thanksgiving’s schedule will start in Detroit as usual. The Lions will host the Bears at 1 p.m. ET on CBS and the Eagles will visit the Cowboys on Fox at 4:30 p.m. ET. Thursday’s action will conclude with the Chiefs in Buffalo to face the Bills at 8:20 p.m. ET on NBC.
When Jaire Alexander stepped away from the Eagles last season, there was word that he planned to “focus on getting himself right physically and mentally before deciding on his future” as a player.
Alexander’s knee troubles led to the Packers releasing the cornerback after the 2024 season and he wrote in an essay for The Players Tribune that he struggled to deal with that release while likening the end of his seven-year run in Green Bay to a “divorce.” He signed with the Ravens, but had a poor outing in a season-opening loss to the Bills that left him “very, very embarrassed” and doubting his health. He would only play one more game as Baltimore deactivated him in order to try to recover on both fronts and eventually traded him to the Eagles.
Alexander wrote that he made the decision to step away without appearing in a game because his knee began troubling him again and that led to a repeat of doubts about his ability to do the job. He wrote that he “needed to listen to myself, and look out for myself, and put my well-being first.” Alexander’s essay outlines some of the ways he’s done that and whether he is considering a return to the field.
“People still sometimes ask me if I’m ever gonna come back and play,” Alexander wrote. “And, you know what . . . I’ll never say never — I still work out, and the knee’s fine now, so I’m in good shape. But for me, right now, the most important thing really is just to be in a good place overall. To be happy.”
Alexander had previously addressed his mental health and the detail he shares in the essay underlines how difficult last season was for him. His play when healthy in Green Bay would likely earn him a look if he does decide to play again, but it’s far from certain things will play out that way.
All of the international matchups for the 2026 NFL season were announced on Wednesday morning.
We already knew the first two games on the schedule. The 49ers and Rams will meet in the NFL’s first-ever game in Melbourne, Australia in Week 1 while the Ravens and Cowboys will head to Brazil to play a game in Rio in Week 3.
There will be three straight weeks of games in London kicking off the next week. The Colts will face the Commanders at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in Week 4 and the Eagles and Jaguars will square off in the same place the next week. The Jaguars will stay in London to take on the Texans at Wembley Stadium in Week 6.
From there, it will be on to Paris for the first time in league history. The Steelers will battle the Saints at Stade de France in Week 7.
The Bengals-Falcons matchup in Madrid in Week 9 was announced earlier this week and it will be followed by a Patriots-Lions clash at Allianz Arena in Munich the next weekend. The NFL’s return to Mexico City will come in Week 11 when the Vikings and the 49ers square off on Sunday Night Football.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has talked about his desire to see the league play international games each week and the NFL is moving closer to that goal in 2026.
