Never A Fit? Huff-Eagles Divorce Full Of Revisionist History

Even in a magical season, nothing is ever perfect in the NFL.

Take the reigning Super Bowl LIX champion Philadelphia Eagles. The trophy case at the NovaCare Complex shades the adversity that even the best had to endure en route to the ultimate goal.

The best example of that with the Eagles is the $26 million and another $50K or so for the championship ring they paid for the 298 snaps they got from Bryce Huff.

The crown jewel of Philadelphia's free-agency signing spree, at least monetarily, was not first-team All-Pros Saquon Barkley and Zack Baun; it was Huff at three years for $51 million.

Despite lip service about rebooting with Huff in the week leading up to the Super Bowl we now know GM Howie Roseman was just playing the game and keeping Huff as valuable on the trade market as possible before sending him to San Francisco in June for a conditional fifth-round pick.

Dating back to training camp last summer, Huff never seemed like a fit for veteran defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, and it turns out that's how the player felt as well.

Appearing on the "The SFNiners Podcast," Huff claimed to see the writing on the wall early in the process.

"If I'm being 100% honest with you, I wanted a trade like fairly early on," the edge defender said. "And just 'cause of how things went in Philly, I knew pretty early on it wasn't a fit."

"There's a plethora of things that went down," Huff continued. "I don't wanna get into specifics. Being in the league for five years, I kinda knew what it felt like to be in a good situation. ... I kind of knew where it was headed fairly early on into the season, probably even training camp if I'm being honest."

There tends to be a lot of revisionist history on both sides of a divorce, and there's no exception with Huff vs. Fangio.

It did seem like Fangio was giving Huff a bit of tough love last summer with the idea of turning him from a one-trick pony into a more well-rounded, three-down option.

By the size of the contract given to Huff, that was also Roseman's expectation because you're not going that high for a situational pass rusher, even a very effective one.

Huff, however, was coming from a wide-9 environment with Saleh and the New York Jets, where the idea is to play the run on the way to the passer. Fangio's way is a more disciplined approach that isn't as aggressive, where overhang players are expected to set the edge and occasionally drop into coverage as a flat defender, along with the first bullet point of the job description.

Brandon Graham had similar issues going into Chip Kelly's preferred defense with Billy Davis running things, and Fletcher Cox wasn't exactly thrilled when Jonathan Gannon was playing copycat to Fangio.

To be blunt a Jim Schwartz style of defense is more fun for defensive linemen when measured against Fangio's gap-and-a-half mentality, where freelancing isn't exactly part of the plan.

From the Eagles' perspective, two things can be true.

In hindsight, it's clear that Fangio quickly surmised Huff wasn't the best fit for what he wanted to do, but the veteran DC is also not the kind of coach who is going to give up on a player without trying to make him better.

When talking to reporters in the spring during OTAs, Fangio said Huff had been improving until the torn ligament that required surgery and sidelined him for five games.

Fangio stayed away from the fit or the failed expectations.

"I think the one thing is, he was getting better, and when he hurt his hand, he tried to play with it for a couple weeks. It wasn't going good because he was reluctant to use his hand," Fangio. "Then when they operated on it, he had to play with a big cast on his hand, which basically rendered his hand useless and then rendered his arm useless because you can't use your hand.

"That really had an effect on him."

Fangio then explained how about hand work and things like arm length are to pass rushers.

"We just came out of draft season and the first thing you see when they put a guy's name up on the board is his hand size, arm length," said Fangio. "Well, he lost all that. While he was out, Nolan [Smith] got more snaps, Jalyx [Hunt] got more snaps and things evolve, but I think he'll do fine in San Francisco."

The Eagles' winning culture has famously used its gravitational pull to capture the selflessness of many players.

Huff seemed to arrive with the typical NFL edge-rushing mindset that sacks get you paid.

Ironically, sacks did get Huff paid and he should have taken the breather and embraced the opportunity to grow under one of the league's best defensive minds without worrying about his next contract for at least two years.

Old habits die hard.