2012-GameRelease-Divisional

Fangio calls that stint his "lucky break in coaching."
The Stars blitzed often and were one of the first defenses to bring pass rushers from unconventional
positions like safety and cornerback and from an array of angles. The Stars appeared in all three of the
league's championship games and won two of them.
"It was really both of our first exposures to pro football," Capers recalled in a phone interview. "They were
fun years for a lot of reasons, mainly because we won."
The USFL officially folded in 1987 but Mora, Fangio and Capers moved on to the New Orleans Saints.
They brought several players, including linebacker Sam Mills, with them.
The Saints initially used a 4-3 defense but soon turned to a 3-4 system that featured the "Dome Patrol" –
a fearsome linebacking corps that included Mills, Rickey Jackson, Pat Swilling, and another USFL
refugee, Vaughan Johnson.
It's the only linebacker unit from one team to be voted to the Pro Bowl in the same season, and Fangio
was the position coach.
"The benefit was that early in my development as a coach I got exposed to great players," Fangio said.
"So it set a high standard and a high bar of what a great player is."
The experience also started a lifelong friendship with Capers, who later became head coach in Carolina
and Houston, hiring Fangio as his defensive coordinator both times.
In Green Bay, Capers' defense blitzes more often than Fangio's in San Francisco, and it operates out of
its nickel package more often.
But the concepts, the language and the values all date back to the Philadelphia Stars. The two men even
sound the same.
"We can have a conversation on the phone and talk a language that we both speak as far as football lingo
and techniques and assignments," Fangio said. "It's very easy for us to talk because of our background
together."
Said Capers: "When you spend as much time together as we have, you can speak the same language,
so to speak."
The two friends parted ways in 2006 after a regime change in Houston, and Fangio has been working
with a Harbaugh ever since.
Fangio spent three seasons as a defensive assistant under John Harbaugh in Baltimore before agreeing
– after several – attempts to run brother Jim's Stanford defense in 2010. Fangio's nickname at Stanford is
further testament that a coach can be quiet but commanding. Soon after arriving on campus, the
defensive players began referring to their new coach as "Lord Fangio," and they took great joy in finally
getting the better of Harbaugh and their more popular offensive teammates, including Andrew Luck, in
practice.
"It was his whole persona of just being laid-back and that everything he did just seemed to work," former
Stanford safety Michael Thomas said of the nickname. "It was like, man, this guy could do no wrong. He
was like a higher being. It was just a joke among us. But it caught on quickly."
In one year under Fangio, the Stanford defense went from being ranked 90th in the nation to finishing in
the Top 25 in six categories. The Cardinal finished the season by winning the Orange Bowl.