It's a little early to say what the top defense will be for 2025. Draft, free agency, possible trades of elite pass rushers and so forth are yet to come. But there's a pretty good chance the Super Bowl Champion Eagles will be in the discussion.
Vic Fangio struck out as a head coach in Denver (2019-2021), and was out of the league entirely in 2022. But his tenure strictly running defenses has been pretty strong wherever he's been.
In his last four years as a defensive coordinator (Eagles last year, Dolphins the previous season, and Bears prior to the Denver head coaching job), Fangio's defenses ranked in the top 7 in sacks three times and the top 8 in takeaways three times. In a standard scoring system giving 1 point for sacks, 2 points for takeaways and 6 points for defensive touchdowns, all four of those defenses ranked in the top 12 at the position.
And in the eight years prior to that (four in Chicago and four in San Francisco), he had five top-10 fantasy defenses. Five ranked in the top 12 in sacks, and four ranked in the top 10 in takeaways. Personnel counts for a lot at this position, but Fangio knows what he's doing.
Table below shows the performance (sacks, takeaways, and in that standard fantasy scoring) of the 10 defenses Fangio has served as coordinator for since 2011. Defenses finishing in the top 12 in those categories are in bold.
| FANGIO AS DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR, 2011-2024 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Team | Sacks | Takeaways | FF |
| 2011 | 49ers | 7th | 1st | 4th |
| 2012 | 49ers | 11th | 14th | 18th |
| 2013 | 49ers | 18th | 6th | 8th |
| 2014 | 49ers | 22nd | 4th | 10th |
| 2015 | Bears | 22nd | 28th | 30th |
| 2016 | Bears | 12th | 32nd | 21st |
| 2017 | Bears | 7th | 13th | 9th |
| 2018 | Bears | 3rd | 1st | 1st |
| 2023 | Dolphins | 3rd | 8th | 3rd |
| 2024 | Eagles | 13th | 6th | 12th |
It's early, but if I were the type participating in a best-ball draft right now, the Eagles would be a defense I'd be considering very strongly.
--Andy Richardson