Doug Freaking Pederson

Doug Pederson is a good coach. A damn good coach.

This should be obvious by now, but for some reason, Pederson still has some doubters. He won because of Nick Foles. Or he won because of Frank Reich. He doesn’t run the ball enough. He says odd things in his press conferences. He isn’t tough enough on the players.

Some people are going to rip the coach no matter what. It’s just a matter of what they want to complain about.

Anyone who looks at the results with honest eyes has to be impressed.

2016 – 7-9
2017 – 13-3  NFC East champs, Super Bowl champs
2018 – 9-7  playoff win
2019 – 9-7  NFC East champs, ?

Those results are impressive enough. Put them in context and they are incredible.

Doug Pederson's resume:

2017: First Super Bowl in franchise history with backup QB.

2018: Finish with 3 straight victories, win road playoff game with backup QB.

2019: Down 2 Pro Bowl OL, Pro Bowl TE, top three WRs, top two RBs, score 34 to clinch NFCE with 4th straight win.

— Sheil Kapadia (@SheilKapadia) December 30, 2019

The man can coach.

It is one thing to win big when you have star players. It is very different to cobble together a lineup and still find a way for those guys to get the job done.

Pederson has been masterful at motivating his players and getting them to handle adversity. If you described his teams with one word it would be resilient. That’s not an accident. Pederson is able to draw on his days as an NFL player and uses that experience to know which buttons to push.

He is fantastic with X’s and O’s. I don’t think Eagles fans understand just how good he is with this. Too many people obsess on Reich because of the success from 2017. The Eagles had seven games this year with 30 or more points. That is crazy when you think about all the injuries on offense as well as the struggles of the WR corps. It will shock some people to find out the Eagles finished 12th in the league in scoring this year. And that wasn’t with a bunch of defensive or special teams TDs.

Pederson is able to put together a strong gameplan each week and he is one of the best play-callers in the league. The offense averaged 28 points and more than 400 yards per game over the four-game winning streak, despite having so many rookies and practice squad players as the playmakers.

This isn’t luck. This isn’t just facing bad defenses. Watch videos by the X’s and O’s gurus and they will show you that it was play design that got someone wide open for a TD or for a critical play. That’s how the Eagles have been able to get some of the no-names to produce so well. They are schemed open. They are schemed to have good running lanes. That’s Pederson more than anyone else.

He is a strong leader, a good communicator and a schematic guru. He has embraced analytics and the new aggressive model for success. Fourth down is a weapon if used correctly. This is exactly what you want in a coach in this day and age.

Pederson is not perfect. Nor is he beyond criticism. I yell at the TV just like you. He does some things that drive me crazy, both in press conferences and on gameday.

The point here isn’t to worship at the altar of Pederson but rather to appreciate the fact he’s a good coach and the Eagles are lucky to have him. Just look around the NFC East. Dallas is probably going to fire Jason Garrett. They have had one legitimately good head coach in the last 20 years. That was Bill Parcells and he never got them to a Super Bowl.

The Skins are set to hire Ron Rivera, but they haven’t had a good coach since the first tenure of Joe Gibbs. That ended in 1992!

The Giants are trying to figure out what to do with Pat Shurmur. He’s clearly not a good coach, nor was the man he replaced. Tom Coughlin was a good coach for them, but he closed out his tenure with three straight losing seasons.

Winning is hard. Finding a good coach is hard. The Eagles hit a home run when they hired Doug Pederson.

I’m curious to see what this team does in the playoffs. They very well could be one and done. The injuries just catch up to you at some point. But they could get some players back for Sunday and the Eagles are tough at home. If they win this week, DeSean Jackson can come off injured reserve and that could make things really interesting.

I look forward to seeing what Pederson can do when the Eagles actually stay pretty healthy for one of these years. Injuries come and go. The Eagles have had terrible luck the last two years. They’ll have a season when things go their way.

Pederson won’t win Coach of the Year, but he really should get some votes. The job he has done this season is nothing short of amazing.

_