One of the Best

Posted: May 6th, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | Comments Off on One of the Best

Doug Pederson is entering his fifth season as the Eagles head coach. His hiring didn’t move the needle for fans or the media, but Pederson has been a tremendous success as the Eagles coach.

Pederson is 38-26 in his four seasons as coach. He is 4-2 in the playoffs. Pederson guided the Eagles to a pair of NFC East titles and you might remember he won a big game in Minneapolis a few years back.

Rotoworld did their ranking of NFL coaches and had Pederson fifth.

5. Doug Pederson
Career Record: 38-26 (.594)
With The Eagles Since: 2016
Last Year’s Ranking: 4

Doug Pederson quickly gained a reputation as the league’s analytics prince, but his recent seasons have been more MacGyver than mathematics. If you need to win a playoff game with your backup quarterback, Pederson is your man. A 4-0 finish to steal the division after starting 5-7? Pederson will get it done. Craving normalcy? Pederson hasn’t really had it since Carson Wentz’s 2017 ACL tear. That’s when things got weird and have stayed so. A huge part of it has been personnel. The Eagles routinely don’t have it in the secondary, while the injuries got so bad on offense last year that “Greg Ward” spent time as the No. 1 receiver. Pederson continues to make lemonade out of lemons, which can obscure his continued devotion to cold, hard logic. Even at 9-7, the Eagles remained one of the league’s most efficient offenses last season, as well as one of the most aggressive on fourth down. Pederson knows what he’s doing, and it will look even better if his team can get just a little bit healthier with a little bit better roster.

Pederson had a healthy, talented team once and won the Super Bowl. He’s gotten the most out of banged up teams in other years. That isn’t to say he’s perfect and hasn’t had some frustrating moments, but he is a damn good coach and gives the Eagles a chance to win heading into every season.

It will be interesting to see what happens if this team stays pretty healthy. Pederson could deliver big time results. Or we could find out that 2017 was the real anomaly and that Pederson is more of a 9-7 guy. I don’t think that is the case, but he’s only been on the job four years so we still have plenty to learn about him.

Sean McDermott came in at 11th in the rankings. Frank Reich was 13th.

The rest of the NFC East coaches are new so they weren’t ranked. Here are some comments of note.

Joe Judge – Giants

 Judge began his Giants tenure by literally refusing to say the names of his players, let alone confirm their depth chart standing. It was the kind of FootballMan™ gambit that anyone other than Belichick has trouble pulling off. We know nothing about Judge except for the coaches he’s worked for. What we do know is that your former boss is rarely predictive when it comes to NFL success.

Mike McCarthy – Cowboys

The Cowboys wanted a culture change after a decade of clapping through Jason Garrett’s underachievement. Mike McCarthy’s grim intensity is certainly that, but the Packers changed McCarthy’s stale culture into a 13-3 NFC Championship Game appearance last season. McCarthy, for his part, has claimed he learned from his final few years of Packers failures. One manifestation of this was his retainment of Kellen Moore as offensive coordinator, a surprising delegation of powers from an offensive micro-manager. Anyone who remembers McCarthy’s 2018 play-calling will agree it was a wise decision. Like most coaches, McCarthy won in Green Bay when a strong overall roster overlapped with a star quarterback. He will have both in Dallas. Will McCarthy be the reason the Cowboys win? No. Can they win with him? Yes.

Ron Rivera – Skins

Rivera was low-floor, high-ceiling with magnetic talent Cam Newton at quarterback. There is no such cornerstone in Washington, though Dwayne Haskins can’t be written off just yet. Like Jack Del Rio in Oakland, Rivera arrives as a stabilizing force. Like Del Rio in Oakland, the pathway to more might not be there. Rivera is a decent man without a decent team. This project will take many years to come to fruition. “Many years” is not a phrase that exists in Snyder’s lexicon. Even if Rivera lays the foundation, it will almost certainly be someone else putting on the roof.

Good stuff.

*****

Who is bored and wants a good Jadeveon Clowney rumor to waste time on?

I knew you’d go for that.

Berman is a Houston-based TV anchor. He’s not coming at this from a Philly angle. Most likely, this is Clowney’s agent or someone who works for Clowney trying to drum up interest. It is pretty amazing that a player of Clowney’s ability is still on the market in early May.

The Eagles have plenty of cap room. They are known as an aggressive team that likes to sign free agents. It also helps that the Eagles have a tremendous amount of media coverage. If you want to generate some buzz on your client, mention that the Eagles are interested and watch the machine go to work.

My guess is that the Eagles don’t have much interest in Clowney, but let’s talk about the potential move. We’ll start with why it makes sense. Clowney can be an impact pass rusher. You can never have enough of those guys. He can line up all over the formation and be disruptive. Clowney is an outstanding athlete. He will take over some games (like he did in a couple against the Eagles).

You’ll see some people note that Clowney only had three sacks last year. Josh Sweat had four. Yikes. Clowney is overrated, right?

Using stats like that generates a false conclusion. Watch the tape. Clowney is someone that offenses have to gameplan for. He affects a lot of plays even when he doesn’t get the sack or even the QB hit. Clowney can be an impact player.

Sweat had four sacks, but at least two of them were sacks created by other rushers. Sweat was there to seal the deal. No one has planned for Sweat since his days at Florida State. And even then, Sweat just wasn’t a guy you feared.

When he is healthy and on his A-game, Clowney can dominate.

The case against Clowney is that he hasn’t been healthy enough often enough. You shouldn’t have to compare him to Sweat. That should be a joke of an idea. Clowney has never had 10 sacks in a season. He has games where he doesn’t look like an elite talent. If he was truly that good of a player, would he be getting ready to join his third team in three years?

Explosive pass rushers that are 27-years old are normally coveted. That’s not the case with Clowney.

Money is an important factor here. Clowney wanted $20M per season. That’s not happening. I don’t know how much his price has dropped, but the lack of a market tells you he’s not getting what he wanted.

As for the Eagles, while they do have cap room, they are way over the cap for next year. They want to keep as much cap space this year as possible so they can move it forward to help with 2021.

At the same time, if Clowney’s price got cheap enough, maybe the Eagles would see him as too good to pass up.

Some of you will bring up Clowney’s cheap shot on Carson Wentz and subsequent comments about Eagles fans. If the Eagles think Clowney can help them win games, they’ll find a way past that stuff.

I just don’t see him ending up in green.

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