Vic Fangio holds back discussing Eagles' decision to trade Bryce Huff to 49ers

The Philadelphia Eagles officially parted ways with pass rusher Bryce Huff this week, sending him to the San Francisco 49ers in exchange for a conditional sixth-round pick in the 2026 NFL Draft.

The move wasn't much of a surprise considering Huff's lack of production and inability to fit right in Vic Fangio's defense.

But when Fangio spoke about the trade on Tuesday, he held back from criticizing the veteran pass rusher.

“I think the one thing is he was getting better, and when he hurt his hand, he tried to play with it a couple of weeks,” said Fangio. “It wasn’t going good because he was reluctant to use his hand. 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 your arm useless because you can’t use your hand.

“That really had an effect on him. And we just came out of the draft season, and the first thing you see when they put a name up on the board is his hand size, arm length. Well, he lost all that."

The good news for Huff is that he'll get a fresh start in the Bay Area, this time without the weight of sky-high expectations.

"Things evolved, but I think he’ll do fine in San Francisco,” Fangio said. 

Moving forward, Fangio expressed confidence in the Eagles’ edge rush group following the Huff trade, particularly highlighting the development of Nolan Smith and Jalyx Hunt. He also noted the offseason depth additions. 

“I feel good about Nolan,” he said. “I think we’ll feel good about Jalyx now that he’s gonna get a lot of reps and develop. He played good for us down the stretch last year and played a lot, as you saw. So, I feel good about those two guys and I think they’ll continue to improve. We’ve got (Josh) Uche, we’ve got Azeez (Ojulari), and we got three other guys there. I think we’ll be fine.”