Eagles' Vic Fangio Retirement Scare Reportedly Caused Philly to Eye Jim Schwartz, Jonathan Gannon

The Philadelphia Eagles reportedly considered bringing in two former NFL head coaches this offseason after receiving a "big scare" that defensive coordinator Vic Fango would retire.

Jimmy Kempski of PhillyVoice reported Sunday that Fangio told the Eagles he was retiring before the team was able to convince him to return for at least the 2026 campaign. Yet Kempski also reported that prior to Fangio's "for now" decision to come back, the team reached out to Jonathan Gannon and considered doing the same with Jim Schwartz.

Philadelphia won the Super Bowl during Fangio's first season as DC in 2024 and then finished fifth in the league in points allowed during his second. Losing him would be a significant blow even if it had those other fallback options, so it comes as no surprise the team wanted him to stay.

This is apparently not the first time Fangio considered retiring from the Eagles, though, as NFL Network's Mike Garafolo reported, "This almost happened last year. During the Super Bowl party, from what I gather, he was telling people, 'it's been great working with you. I'm out. I'm going to ride out on this note.' And then he came back."

Gannon would have at least been a familiar name, as he was the DC in Philadelphia in 2021 and 2022 prior to becoming the head coach of the Arizona Cardinals. Both of those Eagles teams made the playoffs with the 2022 one reaching the Super Bowl with a defense that finished second in the league in yards allowed.

While Arizona fired Gannon, the Green Bay Packers have since hired him as their DC.

As for Schwartz, the former Detroit Lions head coach is also a familiar name in Philadelphia considering he was the DC for the five years prior to Gannon holding the role. The 2017 Eagles won the Super Bowl with a defense that was fourth in the league in points and yards allowed.

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Schwartz's immediate future is not as clear as Gannon's, as he was the Cleveland Browns' DC the last three years but was passed over in the head-coaching search for Todd Monken.

NFL Network's Tom Pelissero reported he "was visibly upset, said goodbyes in the building and told other coaches he's not coming back" when he didn't land the head-coaching job.

NFL insider Jordan Schultz noted Schwartz can't simply leave since he is under contract with the Browns but cited a source who said, "If it has to get ugly, Schwartz is someone who will be perfectly fine making it ugly."

There is plenty of intrigue surrounding Schwartz at this point, but it wouldn't be surprising if the Eagles reached out to him in the future whenever Fangio does retire.

After all, they reportedly thought about it this offseason.