Doug Pederson’s Coaching Suggestions Mirrored the Eagles Legacy Problem
Doug Pederson has found himself back in the frying pan as a new report rang out last week that he is still in hot water with Eagles owner Jeff Lurie.
After a disastrous end to the season, many Eagles fans were confused about why Doug’s job was regarded as “safe” as it was, with the reports out of Novacare seemingly pardoning Doug and GM Howie Roseman for another year.
However, that all changed last week when these new reports came out, and Doug and Lurie will meet again in Florida today or tomorrow to discuss Doug’s future.
**UPDATE: At the time of this writing, it’s reported that Doug has been fired, the following article will reflect that.
In those initial post-season interviews, Lurie was “unimpressed” with Doug and his plans for the 2021 season. Lurie reportedly allowed Doug to present his plan to get his team turned around from their miserable 4-11-1 showing in 2020.
According to Eagles Writer Jeff McClane, Doug’s suggestions included promoting embattled QB Coach Press Taylor to Offensive Coordinator and bringing back former DBs coach Cory Undlin for Defensive Coordinator.
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Both of these decisions, even for an outsider, are head-scratching at best, seeing as Taylor was at the helm of one of the worst QB regressions in NFL history with franchise quarterback Carson Wentz in 2020, and Cory Undlin was unceremoniously fired after the 2019 season after another mediocre year of secondary play. Many people have theorized that Taylor’s close personal relationship with Wentz is the main reason behind Wentz’s regressions in 2020. A new QB coach or Offensive Coordinator without that connection would benefit the floundering 28-year-old star.
Undlin, on the other hand, left Philadelphia and became the Detroit Lions DC, where they flexed the 30th ranked defense in football by DVOA and came close to allowing the most points EVER by a defense in 2020. Undlin, too, interestingly enough, was hired by Patricia because they were “old friends,” serving on the New England Patriots together as assistants in 2004.
That leads me to the crux of Doug’s problem: he was far too loyal to those he considers “his” guys. Zach Berman shared an excerpt from Doug’s book “Fearless,” which he released in the offseason after winning Super Bowl 52:
His philosophy of bringing in “his guys” to go to battle with is exactly the kind of strategy he was going with these potential coaching hires, despite their mediocre-to-miserable performances as coaches for the Eagles since 2017. It’s no secret to anyone that a large amount of Doug’s success and likely the Lombardi came on the back of OC Frank Reich, who just led the Colts to a tough wild card loss this past weekend. (Hell, the reason a ton of trade rumors involving Wentz have him going to the Colts to replace Philip Rivers is because of his MVP-like success under Reich). This commitment to growing “his” guys was even evident when he joined the team in 2016, where he shipped off a tremendous amount of Chip Kelly signings and coaches to get “his guy” Wentz in the draft and into the starting lineup. (although there was an immense amount of utility in getting rid of guys like Kiko Alonso, DeMarco Murray, and Byron Maxwell, as well).
There’s no problem with loyalty in the NFL, and many of the great coaches in the NFL, like Andy Reid, will leave lasting legacies in the NFL based on the coaching trees they have spread throughout football, and it seems like that kind of legacy is what Doug was after. The problem is that legacy cannot be emphasized when it’s a poor one; legacy for the sake of itself is dangerous not only to a team’s success but also to the coach’s personal reputation. And Doug’s loyalty is mirrored not only in his coaching but his personnel decisions.
We may never know who, in fact, is directly responsible for the continuous resigning of so-called “legacy” players.
Guys who have been Eagles for a long time, often way past their primes to a point where they are actively hurting the team; however, if Doug did, in fact, have as much say as he should as the Head Coach, then it was his brand of player loyalty that had guys like Jason Peters, Vinny Curry, Darren Sproles, DeSean Jackson, Alshon Jeffery, and Corey Clement kicking around the roster long after they should’ve been gone.
Peters especially, by keeping him on (and off) the roster in place of the young and promising Jordan Mailata, absolutely hampered Mailatas growth by at least a season, despite the excellent level Mailata found himself playing at times in repeated relief of the oft-injured Peters. Forcing Alshon back into the lineup over 1-month phenom Travis Fulgham and using DeSean over speedy rookie Quez Watkins delayed more development for the Eagles’ already sparse young group of playmakers in favor of “Doug’s” guys.
Remember Corey Clement? Leading receiver in the Super Bowl? Yeah, me either.
Dudes have been a shell of that performance since. Yet, Doug has continually kept him on the roster despite his limited utility in anything and keeping the actually incredibly talented Miles Sanders off the field.
This brand of loyalty to his guys is commendable in certain fields. Players want to play for coaches who have their backs and believe in them through thick and thin, and coaching staffs grow stronger the longer they are allowed to grow and develop with one another, just like the teams they coach. However, Doug hung his hat on the wrong legacies and threw in behind the wrong bets. He trusted aging players he had too much affinity for because they won him a Super Bowl over the franchise’s potential future stars. He trusted coaches who he brought in with too much responsibility despite them never showing they could handle it or perform at an NFL level but wasn’t even willing to admit he was wrong about them. Whether out of ego or pure loyalty and trust in his brand of football, now that he’s gone, we might never know. But Doug rested on too many of his own laurels, too committed to his own coaching tree, without noticing that it couldn’t support his weight.
This blog writer still thinks Doug is being scapegoated for a much more prevalent issue in the Eagles Organization, General Manager Howie Roseman. Doug was apparently “sick of being told what to do,” according to a report from Tim Kelly at 94WIP and “decreasingly saw eye to eye on personnel” with Roseman.
Eagles fans everywhere will be waiting with bated breath over his future, and I hope it’s a short one with the Eagles.
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