Hope For Doug
Posted: July 20th, 2016 | Author: Tommy Lawlor | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | 88 Comments »Life is so much easier when you have the benefit of hindsight.
I was not excited when the Eagles hired Andy Reid back in 1999. I was open-minded about him and definitely curious, but not excited at all. On the other hand, I was ecstatic when the Eagles lured Chip Kelly away from Oregon. Big Red did a great job and got the Eagles to the Super Bowl. Chip got the Eagles to the wild card round in his first year, but went backwards after that. There is no debate about who the better coach is/was.
So what do we make of Doug Pederson?
To me, he’s the biggest mystery on the Eagles. Seems like a genuinely nice guy. Good assistant coach. But is he the guy you want running your NFL franchise? I go back and forth on that issue.
I recently decided to compare Pederson to the best Eagles coaches of the last 40 years, Dick Vermeil and Andy Reid. I wrote about the comparison for PE.com. It is easy to judge Vermeil and Reid now, but what about when they were hired? Where had they come from? What was their background? Things like that.
Pederson turned out to be more similar to them than I expected. It was actually funny just how similar Vermeil and Reid were. I’d never really thought about comparing the two of them. Pederson’s background is different because he played so long while the other guys got right into coaching. I would say that hurts Pederson except that he spent so much of his career essentially as a player-coach. He stood on the sideline thinking about the game and advising the QB who came to the sideline after a series or during a timeout. This is very different from a Duce Staley or Greg Lewis who spent their time on the field actually playing and not just studying the game.
I’m still very nervous about Pederson. He could turn out to be a terrific coach, but he could also be a disaster. There are a lot of unknowns with him.
Having the perfect background guarantees nothing. Success will happen because of what you do and the decisions you make. Steve Spurrier was a phenomenal college coach. He came to the NFL full of hubris. Spurrier surrounded himself with cronies and didn’t exactly bring the greatest work ethic. He went 12-20 in 2 seasons and then got fired. Think about Marty Mornhinweg. He coached college football for a decade. He was the QBs coach in Green Bay when they won the Super Bowl in 1996. He then followed his friend Steve Mariucci to SF. Marty was the OC of an offense that did some historically great things in 1998. He was in SF for 4 years before getting the head coaching job in Detroit.
Marty hired a poor staff. His QB coach was a young guy from Lehigh. His OC was Maurice Carthon, who only had experience as a RBs coach at that time. His DC was Vince Tobin, who had succeeded Buddy Ryan with the Bears. Tobin did good things in Chicago, but was handed an elite defense. On his own, he was a mediocre coach. Marty didn’t have much at QB in his first season – Charlie Batch, Ty Detmer and late round rookie Mike McMahon. The Lions were poorly run back then, but Marty didn’t help himself. He was gone after 2 years.
Pederson followed the Andy Reid playbook.
- Hire a strong, veteran DC
- Draft a QB early
- Sign a veteran QB you know well
- Keep some key assistants from the previous staff
- Hire good offensive assistants to help you
- Build the offensive line
Boom, boom and boom. A lot of this is common sense, but for some reason, other coaches ignore it. They try to reinvent the wheel. Why do that?
Pederson is smart enough to know who he is and what his limitations are. He’s not trying to change the game of football. He’s trying to get the Eagles back to winning, partially by stealing ideas from the guy who previously had the team winning.
I still have my concerns when it comes to Pederson, but the more I think and write about him, the more comfortable I get. I will feel even better when he beats Dallas, the Eagles pitch a shutout or Pederson hoists the Lombardi Trophy…for the third year in a row. Nobody wants just one Super Bowl. Right?
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[…] Tommy Lawlor Life is so much easier when you have the benefit of hindsight. I was not excited when the Eagles […]
Pretend for a moment that Pete Carroll, Bill “Belacheat” ,Vince Lombardi or some other fantastic proven head coach was coaching this current Eagles roster. What would everyone be saying about this teams record/outlook for this season in this division? Is a great head coach worth an extra 2-3 wins? Will we be 6-10 with DP , but would have been 9-7 or 10-6 with a “great” head coach? Personally I believe a quality head coach can be the difference in a game or 2, but ultimately the talent on the roster determines the fate of your team. I think our roster is capable of winning 8 or 9 games this year with a “good” job by DP. Hopefully this will enable us to be competitive all year long and have a shot at the division title in December.
I think you are missing half of the impact, though. The talent on the team determines its success, but the quality of the coaching determines the talent on the team.
Towards the end of the Reid years, when the coaches had been plucked and poorly replaced, players would regularly leave Philly and go on to find more success elsewhere. It wasn’t that our raw materials were poor, it was the case that our coaching didn’t turn those raw abilities into talent.
I recognize the “impact” of a good coaching staff. I was focusing mainly on how much the head coach himself can impact this particular roster. Obviously good coaching will help bring out the best in our players. Even the best coaches, however, will struggle if they do not have a talented roster to begin with.
Regarding the end of the AR years I do not recall many players who would “regularly leave” Philly to go on to become more successful elsewhere. During this era until the very end the Eagles mainly made the right choices when they let go of players who were clearly on the decline. The biggest mistake we made was letting Brian Dawkins go b/c he should have finished his career as an Eagle. Dawk was not “more successful” elsewhere though. I think the end of the Andy Reid era was more about bad drafting, poor FA signings and the team no longer buying into what AR was selling. That’s my opinion anyway.
I wasn’t thinking of established veterans leaving over money/age calculus. I was thinking of young guys who never reached their potential, moved on, and found success.
Who left the eagles and have more success else where under Reid? Im not talking Joe Mays type of success where its more out of need than skill.
Others are better at drawing names out of the past than I am, but off the top of my head, a couple safeties, Consodine and the guy in KC now, King Dunlap, Danny Ammendola.
Dion Lewis, Jared(?) Poyer the DB, Kurt Coleman
May have been under Chip however
Jordan Poyer was a Chip pick.
Coleman is an average player. This was, by far, his greatest season playing in a top defense. He’s not good enough to dominate by himself, although is quite good making plays on the ball.
I like Dion, but he’s a Sproles-type player.
Right, but average starter on a great defense is a significant step up from his time here.
I think every team in the NFL would love to have a young Sproles type player.
Considine and Demps are/was meh at best still. Not sure King Dunlap is any different than they guy we let leave, we just had the best LT in the entire game.
I think Amendola is super overrated (he has one of the worst ypc of any high volume WR in the history of the NFL) and not sure he would have been any good here consider we dont have Tom Brady.
We didn’t let Steve Young get away or trade Babe Ruth for a box of donuts, but for the most part they turned into reliable starters on playoff teams. That is more than they were here.
This is true you can have the greatest players ever assembled but if your coach is a bumbling moron and the defense knows your plays before you do then you’re not going to be drowning in victory champagne anytime soon.
I think the Niners are a good example of the difference a coach makes.
There was almost zero difference between the 2010 and 2011 in terms of overall talent, yet 1 team went 6-10 and the other went 13-3, then 11-4-1 and then 12-4, only the last season was bad at 8-8, but Jim was clearly undermined by his stupid GM.
Or his own combative attitude with everybody who wasn’t Jim.
Pederson being an outright disaster doesn’t scare me as much as the idea that his ceiling may be mediocrity, disasters go up in a spectacular ball of fire and that becomes evident pretty early when it’s in play,mediocrity has a way of sticking around for a few years too long.
I hope he gets at least 3 years no matter what. Unless he is an epic disaster, I feel like football coaches who draft a young QB needs 3 years to show signs of improvement.
That is vital. Allowing a young coach time to implement his program, shape his roster, and grow in his skills takes time. I hope Pederson gets a full 4 year to do this before they choose to extend or fire him.
Yeah I just can’t see him putting together a game plan to beat Bill Belicek. Time will tell though…
The game play to beat Belichek lies with the DC. Davis’ list of accomplishments is short, but he did hold off Tom Brady long enough to get the win.
Agree with the second sentence but Belichek is a defensive oriented coach himself. Hardly just a matchup for our defensive coordinator
Chip Kelly beat Belichick. And Andy Reid almost beat him with AJ Feeley at QB.
Well Chip is very talented as a coach. The win was not impossible for him, especially with gronk, Edelman etc out. Chip is very flawed as well of course but do we think he’s just purely a crappy coach all of a sudden?
Andy couldn’t ever quite get the win over Bill so don’t see why u mentioned him.
Can Doug Peterson win with emotional intelligence making up for his relative lack of logical intelligence? (Not committing to full use of sports science despite the obvious results in the injury reports, etc)
Is it just me or does DP look like a guy who would get wasted and beat the shit out of hookers out back behind the dumpster at his favorite dive..?
I think you may be projecting.
Pederson is a guy that would plan a prayer group for a bachelor party.
As the old saying goes, you can’t judge a book by it’s cover.
For all we know now he could be better than Belicheat and run circles around Singletary.
I will reserve judgment when I actually watch this team perform.
He was smart enough to pick Jim Schwartz to be his DC, which by the way was IMO the greatest DC hire in the NFL this season by far.
He has proven he can coach effectively on an NFL level in K.C.
I am more worried about our WR’s catching the ball and our LB depth than I am worried about Pedersons ability.
I don’t put as much stock in the importance of a head coach as I put in the quality of his staff. Reid’s initial staff was great and success followed. Reid’s staff his final few years here was a disaster and so was the team. Then he goes to the Chiefs and once again has a good coaching staff with a real DC and he has success again.
Is Tomlin a great coach? Or did he win a pair of SBs because he drafted a young franchise QB, had a good OC in Arians, and a legend running his defense?
<<o. ✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤:::::::!bc680p:….,….
He didnt even draft Big Ben, Tomlin got handed a HoF DC and HoF caliber QB.
Who had more credentials than Jimmy Johnson when he was hied by Miami? To work with one of the best QBs in NFL history? I was certain great things would happen there. Who was hired with less excitement than the retread failure Bill Belichek in New England?
Whatever makes for a successful HC in the NFL, it’s clear to me no fan or pundit knows. It’s what makes the game so interesting.
Belicheck wasn’t a pure retread hire and was still thought of quite well around the league at time including the Patriots. Belicheck was the apparent to Parcells with the Jets, was their head coach for a day, and resigned to take over the Patriots’ job.
Never directly came out why Belicheck resigned but supposedly he got a much bigger paycheck with the Pats & more control on player personnel decisions. Pats had to give the Jets a first-round pick in ’00 too as compensation for signing Belicheck as their coach.
<<o. ★✫★✫★✫★✫★✫★✫★✫★✫★✫★✫★✫★✫★✫★✫★✫★✫★✫★✫★✫★✫★✫★✫★✫★✫★✫★✫★:::::::!!be456p:….,.
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I hope Pederson is able to repair the lack of professional respect and proper treatment of players that was missing under Kelly. More hitting (and hopefully some player fights) returning to camp should be a good development as well.
Now if we can get camp back to a college campus; we’d be in good shape!
Ugh, I drove by Lehigh’s football field 2 days ago and it made me sad that practices are no longer open. I have no desire to drive to through traffic to the Linc to see practice from a mile away when I used to stand a few feet from the action when Big Red was running the show.
Ah Marty, the idiot who deferred a coin toss in sudden death OT…’nuff said.
The development of Wentz is more important than W-L’s over the next seasons. That’s the metric by which I will judge Doug.
Amen.
Ideally Doug will get an “incomplete” for this year if things go according to plan and he learns from the bench.
Yeah I hear ya, and completely understand this. But I personally still want to see them be competitive… at least see overall improvements over the past 2 seasons.
I would be forever grateful To Doug if he develops Wentz into a top 5 QB, but if he’s otherwise not a good coach, I’ll want him replaced. Good on him for being a QB whisperer and all, but you still need a coach for the rest of the team. Too many other things to determine whether he’ll be a good HC besides how Wentz develops.
I’m a little concerned however about the HC is a quarterback guru, the OC is a quarterback guru and the QB coach is a quarterback guru. So first, which one are the quarterbacks supposed to listen to and second, who is coaching the rest of the team?
You can’t just give him that much of a blank check although I agree this year is largely a throwaway year. Do need to see how the offense does as well as the team overall responding to him.
I have a feeling he is comes in and does well building a good repore with his team or that he struggles to do this year & next proving he wasn’t ready to be a head coach including him being fired at the end of next year.
If the reports are true that it was Lurie though who demanded that Bradford be back this year and wanted Roseman to field a competitive roster, that isn’t a good sign especially the directly meddling with the roster.
Lurie has had some warts as an owner but not meddling in the roster and player personnel generally hasn’t been of them.
Pretty sure there were articles gushing about how smart all CK hires were….No idea how Pederson will do, even with a highly touted DC. Time will tell. Can’t wait for some football….
I kind of doubt that. Chip’s staff wasn’t that highly regarded and he refused to announce it for a long time. Certainly no one gushed over Billy Davis like they are Shwartz. At best he was unproven (and arguably still is since he was running Chip’s scheme and not his own) at worst he was 2 time failure.
And I just read that the wr coach was actually an o-line coach? Is this true? If it is how did I not know that until now? And WTF Chip?
that article talked about how smart Chip was to hire experienced NFL coaches because he lacked the nfl experience…
Not sure what you’re talking with OLine. Stoutland is still there (for some reason) and he came from college as an OLine coach.
Read it again.
Last week on bleeding green one of the articles mentioned that we will no longer have an offensive line coach coaching the wide receivers as a potential reason to hope they’ll improve. This would suggest that Chips wr coach was an offensive line coach before getting that job and if true is something I didn’t know, incredibly stupid, and fitting with how Chip seemed to prioritize that position.
My bad.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Bicknell
He was a WR coach and TE coach before he was WR coach here.
Yes he started as a OL coach, but not like it was Juan Castillo like move
To help with their blocking?
People on here totally slammed the Billy Davis hire when it happened. Tommy wrote an article to the effect of “this dude has poor results in other spots, but give him a chance.”
bingo :). People here never seemed to like him. Articles always say “give him a chance”
Since the team has kept several of the CK hires they can’t be all that bad.
“Pederson [and Lurie and Howie] followed the Andy Reid playbook.”
This is what actually has me most scared. They’re trying to recreate the past. But it’s a different league, and Wentz is not McNabb. I hope that this isn’t becoming an Al Davis type situation, where the owner meddles in attempt to recreate unique situations from the past.
Well let’s hope Wentz is better than McNabb. They just took turf worms off the endangered list.
He may be better than McNabb, but the odds are seriously stacked against it.
I was thinking after reading this about the QB conversation from earlier, where Tommy talked about Big Ben and how he was brought along slowly – the benefits of a great defense and a solid power running game. And I was thinking of other young QBs who have been developed (or at least played well for stretches when still young) and realized that Russel Wilson, Colin K., Big Ben all shared the same circumstances. Heck, you can argue that Eli at least had the power run game as opposed to a west coast system. So I tried to remember the last QB developed under a West Coast offense system (like Doug is going to implement) and came away even more convinced that Wentz, who had less than 700 attempts in college, is going to need to sit for at least a year, and hopefully more.
Think it won’t be very hard for Wentz to surpass McNabb as a leader and in terms of the intangibles… cant be hard to be better than a petty, passive Aggressive 100mil dollar Qb that compromised our future because he was jealous over our WR coming off a year where we finally got over the hump and made it to the SB…
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Whether or not Wentz can ever reach McNabbs level of play remains to be seen.
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Wentz seems to have all the tools, hopefully his QB brain is as special as many evaluators think
McNabb had a lot of qualities I would praise but leadership generally isn’t one of them.
Mike McMahon *shudders*
2005 was horrible. Really, even though we had a better record than in 2012, somehow it was much more frustrating– probably because everyone was hoping for another crack at the SB.
Interesting handle.
Thank you.
If you need to know where it’s from…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypInFIUNYD0
Although it is way too early to judge him, I like what he has done thus far. He has assembled a veteran staff which has been successful , brought in a QB who is potentially a franchise QB, and handled the Bradford holdout extremely well. He is the anti-Kelly in terms of ego. All this bodes well. I feel lot better about him than I did when they first hired him.
I understand the Eagles still have two roster spots open. Any news on what Doug Pederson is thinking?
Hopefully not Torrance Small and Charles and Johnson to “help” like they did when Pederson played here in 99.
I’m pretty sure he already hired his Small (Givens) and Johnson (Randle). Fortunately, we already have players better than the likes of Dameane Douglas and Na Brown on the roster.
He and Duce are going to lace them up again?
Man I hope they can get Tulloch over here and fast.
We are so thin at LB that you have to think they will sign someone.
yawn
Comparing Reid to Kelly can expand the mind’s dimensions. Record-wise is, for many, the only criteria that matters, but step away from the official stats and you have a highly organized, admin type who makes sure he’s got every T crossed and every i dotted. Strategically locks out the media to minimize distractions. Very much an administrative product of his teaching; creates plans and builds structure from copious notes. A stabilizer and a steady hand. A great hire at a time when a franchise was in dire need of structural enhancement.
Then there is the tactical wonk who definitely knows his ability to get guys open, to get chunks of yardage, to take the bare bones 11 vs 11 and find every conceivable edge, every available angle. Misses very little going on on the field of play, very tuned into habits and practices, the use of time and the wasting of time. Not a student of any strategy that isn’t applicable to the field of play. Not at all interested in coddling players and not particularly into barking at them either. Relates to the media as a personality, giving away his mood at times but very little else about the team in his charge. Not averse to telling the world the safe lies that the world expects to hear (“I get along fine with Mr. Roseman”)
The book on Kelly is on the thin side, but most Eagle fans may feel they know enough. I am not convinced his third year in Philly is completely on him. Yes, he balked and demanded more say in who plays for him, but how that went over institutionally is a rather open question. I’ve stated this before: A strong FO would have not entertained Kelly’s demands for a split-second, and maybe his demonstrated discontent was evidence of a flaw in the franchise, and not simply an oversized ego.
In some ways it seems like the second guy should work for the first, but the first guy could definitely benefit from having the wonk on the sidelines on sundays. I used to get medical treatment from a highly intuitive, amazingly effective Vietnamese acupuncturist who once told me that the hardest thing about practicing TCM in America was that she had to learn to be a business person once she learned the language. If I can crudely analogize, Andy Reid is very adept at applying all that he has learned about HCing, and Chip Kelly is in his comfort zone on the sidelines, seeing and feeling the game and how it is unfolding. Neither will do much without supportive environments and good fortune.
I fail to see how Chip Kelly was in his comfort zone on the sidelines. He would gameplan and then make literally zero adjustments from the sidelines. If anything, he froze up and was too weak to make changes.
I’m not sure I agree wit all these points-I’m generally not that high on Kelly these days- but several things ring true. I do think the organization should shoulder some of the blame. Reid was terrible at adjustments on game day but great at game planning. Kelly seemed to have a good feel for the game on the sidelines, but only in a very limited game plan that was ultimately cracked by superior NFL intelligence. And Kelly arguably changed the game in some serious ways with concepts like tempo and zone read. There’s a way for athletic qbs to be successful earlier on in their careers now. Cam was a freaking weapon last year. Kelly didn’t create the concepts but he certainly pioneered their implementation in the modern NFL.
We have no sense of whether Pederson can develop a plan or make adjust,mets on game day. Every coach (save belicheck maybe) has weaknesses to go along with strengths. Hopefully Pederson can figure out his strengths and weaknesses sooner rather than later and account for them. This is something neither Reid nor Kelly could ultimately do.
Can Elliot Shor Parks please slap himself? Why is he trying to stir up crap with Rowe being cut?
http://www.nj.com/eagles/index.ssf/2016/07/10_eagles_on_the_roster_bubble_entering_training_c.html#8
So people like you, out of frustration, copy and paste his link to a new audience subsuquently getting him more clicks.
Good point, but I wouldn’t want be accused of talking out of my backside and making things up.
You could go stalk him like those weirdos from the other day and let him know about your displeasure.
Lol
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This is pretty consistent with how worthless he is as a source of Eagles info….. But he has become good for Comedic relief…. He is like the court Jester of Eagle beat reporters
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Basically everything ESP says is what I picture “fake WIP Caller” would say.
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Still hoping for the day that he pisses off Jason Peters and gets stuffed into a trash can
All he really said was that Rowe might not be in their plans and made a few points to clarify his thinking a bit. Really isn’t a big deal.
I think Chip really went wrong with not drafting HIS guy early. Regardless of what it cost, I’m happy Pederson got his dude and honestly, I can’t even remember what it cost.
[…] Hope For Doug – Iggles BlitzLife is so much easier when you have the benefit of hindsight. I was not excited when the Eagles hired Andy Reid back in 1999. I was open-minded about him and definitely curious, but not excited at all. On the other hand, I was ecstatic when the Eagles lured Chip Kelly away from Oregon. Big Red did a great job and got the Eagles to the Super Bowl. Chip got the Eagles to the wild card round in his first year, but went backwards after that. There is no debate about who the better coach is/was. So what do we make of Doug Pederson? To me, he’s the biggest mystery on the Eagles. Seems like a genuinely nice guy. Good assistant coach. But is he the guy you want running your NFL franchise? I go back and forth on that issue. […]
I was excited for Chip Kelly in the beginning but after the first season his offense seemed like a gimmick. Idk how Pederson will do but I ready to get back to real football. Not always trying to be cute w every play. Sometimes you have to just line up and beat the guy in front of u. With pederson and all the assistants there’s a lot of nfl minds.
The truly ironic part is that Chip’s cuteness was trying to take that “beat the guy in front of you” mentality to an absurd level. He was so intent on beating the guys across from our players that he was willing to forgo every advantage gained from surprise and variety.
As tough as Andy Reid’s last couple of seasons were here I can say 100% that I have nothing but fond feelings for Big Red and wish him well, but Chip I hope falls flat on his stupid face.
Ezekiel Elliot being accused of Domestic violence from an incident to that happened late last night…. Which feels like getting arrested or suspended is like the initiation to become a cowboy
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Laveon Bell facing 4 game suspensions for Missing multiple drug tests
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I feel like I’m always holding my breath during the offseason, hoping our players safely navigate what has become a minefield between players getting suspended for drug tests, guys getting arrested on top of all the Injuries,…. So Far, so good for the Eagles this offseason. hopefully the injury bug can stay away from our starters Til september…
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We have been fortunate the last few years in terms of not dealing with arrests, suspensions and failed drug tests with the exception of Lane…. Hopefully Howie can continue to put together a roster of solid citizens who can at the very least stay out of trouble/suspensions…. The nature of injuries in the game is hard enough to overcome, can’t add to it with playërs who get themselves suspended..
It’s gotta be a suspension from the league office because Elliot could have strait up murdered his GF and Jerruh wouldn’t cut him.
Rome wasn’t built in a day… fell like another couple drafts and year or two development for Carson.
Way more excited than when everyone was talking about Chip and his “genius”.