PHILADELPHIA — There is something endearing, and quite important to the Eagles, about Vic Fangio’s no-nonsense way of doing and discussing things.

They made him available to the media Tuesday during their latest round of organized team activities, and he answered each question with the clipped frankness that has been one of his hallmarks over his year and a half as the team’s defensive coordinator. He was direct, even when confronted with a question that he couldn’t or didn’t want to answer.

For instance, The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Jeff McLane asked why it took so long for defensive tackle Jordan Davis to get into shape. “I’m ducking that question,” said Fangio, who, instead of responding with a mouthful of time-wasting gobbledygook, at least was honest enough to concede defeat.

Fangio’s approach in that exchange wasn’t much different from his approach to coaching the Eagles’ D last season. Seems pretty simple: You take what you’re given and do the best you can with it, and if you can’t make a player or scheme work, you move on without apology or regret or even a glance backward. And Jeffrey Lurie, Howie Roseman and Nick Sirianni were smart and right to support Fangio in that approach, in whatever decisions he felt he had to make for the good of the defense.

It didn’t matter that the Eagles had made Bryce Huff the biggest acquisition of their offseason — yes, even bigger than Saquon Barkley; they paid Huff more — that they had handed him a contract that could have been worth as much as $51.1 million. Fangio drew a quick conclusion: Huff didn’t fit. Huff couldn’t play. So Huff didn’t play, and now Huff is gone.

To most teams, such a mistake would have been crippling. The Eagles were counting on Huff to be their primary pass rusher, and Fangio was telling them, pretty much from the moment he saw Huff on the field, that Roseman had screwed up by signing the guy. Not only was Fangio right, but he managed to build the NFL’s best defense despite the hole that Huff’s ineffectiveness created.

Roseman deserves plenty of credit for not falling victim to the fallacy of sunk costs, for drafting and signing the players who allowed the Eagles to overcome the Huff misfire. But Fangio deserves as much or more for molding a group loaded with uncertainty into something special.

Remember, the Eagles’ defensive dominance last season was obvious only in retrospect. Josh Sweat had been a disappointment for most of his career. Nolan Smith had been invisible as a rookie. Before opening night in São Paulo, Brazil, against the Packers, did anyone outside the NovaCare Complex even know who Zack Baun was? However high the hopes might have been for Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean, no one presumed that the former would immediately be a shutdown corner and the latter’s insertion into the lineup would help the defense so much. C.J. Gardner-Johnson, Nakobe Dean, Oren Burks, Isaiah Rodgers: It was never so simple as just plug these guys in, and all will be wonderful.

It won’t be so simple this season, either. Is Kelee Ringo ready to be a starting cornerback? Are Sydney Brown, Tristin McCollum or rookie Andrew Mukuba ready to be a starting safety? Can Moro Ojomo make up for the departure of Milton Williams? Can Jalyx Hunt pick up the pass-rushing slack in the aftermath of Brandon Graham’s retirement and Smith’s triceps injury? How much can Adoree’ Jackson, 10 years in, be expected to help in the secondary? What kinds of contributions should be expected from Jihaad Campbell and the other members of this rookie class?

“It’s too early to say,” Fangio said. “I mean, I told the players this. I look at this year [as] very similar to last year, in that at this time last year, we had a lot of turnover in personnel. … I look at us as really basically the same one year to the next. The names have changed. Hopefully, we’ll get the same results from these new guys that we got from a lot of the new guys last year.”

That would be remarkable, to be blunt. But then, the Eagles had a remarkable 2024 season. They went 18-3, scored 95 combined points in the NFC championship game and Super Bowl, won those games by a combined 50 points, and still could have — and maybe should have — been even better. They could have, and maybe should have, gone 20-1, if not for Barkley’s dropped pass against the Atlanta Falcons in Week 2 and Jalen Hurts’ concussion against the Washington Commanders in Week 16.

The point is not to criticize the Eagles for failing to be even greater than they were. The point is that the Eagles are bound to regress from last season to this one. Yet because they were so good in ’24-25, they can take a step backward and still be contenders for a championship. They might even return to the Super Bowl and win it again.

A team doesn’t have to be 18-3 and a force of nature to win a Super Bowl. It can go 12-5 during the regular season and still win one. And, yes, it can backslide so much — or other teams can improve so much — that it doesn’t get there at all.

The degree of that regression will come down to several factors, of course: health and injuries, Kevin Patullo’s performance in his first season as offensive coordinator, Hurts’ performance as a quarterback who wants and will likely be forced into more responsibility for the offense’s fortunes.

The most decisive of those factors, though, will be Fangio’s ability, through so much turnover, to keep the defense at a level close to what it was. There are a lot of questions on that side of the ball, and, unlike Tuesday, he can’t duck any of them.

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