Dougie P Gets Fired
WELL I DIDN’T EXPECT THAT ONE.
Doug Pederson out as coach. The Eagles retain GM Howie Roseman. It’s been 3 years since the Super Bowl run. That’s one of the fastest firings post-championship I can think of outside Jimmy Johnson. Just like Jimmy Johnson, this was clearly not the result of being a shit coach. This was the result of a power struggle. Doug got in a fight with Roseman and lost. Well, at least he spent his last quarter as coach getting a great look at Nate Sudfeld!
I was genuinely shocked. Ousting Doug and keeping Roseman seems like the exact opposite of what most Eagles fans I talked to wanted. Doug’s reputation had declined a lot in recent seasons as a lot of people began to wonder if Frank Reich was the real mastermind behind the run. I don’t think that was ever entirely fair to Doug. That Eagles team was stacked and outside Wentz, very healthy. They haven’t been as lucky since. Reich played a part for sure and Doug has his faults but I still considered him a pretty good coach and I think the Eagles are being fucking idiots.
I didn’t know much about Howie Roseman before this drama started so forgive me if I’m still rather wrong here, but it appears that Howie is the problem to me. The Eagles have not drafted well during his tenure, especially recently. He got in a power struggle with Chip Kelly before Pederson. I’ve seen a lot of jokes that Roseman must have dirt on owner Jeffrey Lurie to have survived this long despite a less than stellar record as GM. I saw reports that Doug wanted to promote Press Taylor, someone Eagles fans apparently hate (I don’t know enough to judge), to OC. That leaked a little bit before the bomb dropped. Maybe Doug really is just a big asshole who wanted to do things his way. But I think it’s telling that this is the second coach in a row to get in a power struggle with Roseman.
I am desperately waiting for a former player or someone to come out and help paint a clearer picture of what happened. There are so many ways to interpret events so far because there is very little meat to chew on. There are reports Wentz and Doug’s relationship was broken after the benching. If that report is true, are Wentz and Howie buddies? If Wentz and Howie are close, why did Howie waste a second round pick on Jalen Hurts? Who’s decision was it to start Hurts in the first place? To me, it seemed like Doug was backing Wentz and held out as long as he could until the outcry and play could not be ignored. Or maybe he wanted to start Hurts far earlier and Howie put up a fight until it was too big a problem to ignore. Hurts is the biggest wrinkle here. Why did they spend a 2nd on him? Who wanted him? Is Wentz a huge dick? Is Doug a huge dick? Is Roseman a huge dick? The only huge dick in the Eagles organization that has ever been confirmed is now on the Bears. I want to know what happened. I want to know how this relationship fell apart. I want to know.
Now the future of the Eagles gets even more interesting than “will Wentz still be there and start in 2021”. One thing is for sure though: this does not help the Eagles at all. The Eagles are neck and neck with the Texans (who have their own hilarious front office drama right now) for the worst situation to work for. What’s appealing about the Eagles job right now? The team is in cap hell, thanks mostly in part to a QB who is difficult to get rid of, may be an unlikeable jerk, and sucks now. The last coach was fired after a power struggle with the same guy who is right there waiting to hire you. The roster is a mess with very little young talent to speak of, and all of their stars are old and getting older. The Eagles will hire someone, but it likely won’t be any of the top candidates. Meanwhile Doug will likely be employed by the end of the month, possibly as an HC again.
They should hire Gritty.
The rumors coming out all seem to point to Pederson going to Roseman and saying “Me or Wentz,” and Roseman choosing Wentz, and then Pederson going over his head to Lurie and saying “Me or Roseman,” and Lurie choosing Roseman. In essence he pulled a Hue Jackson power play and lost.
Chip Kelly was a bad coach and deserved to be fired, but the Pederson thing does seem to point to a deeper instability in the Eagles’ organization. I was assuming Wentz would get traded sometime before July, but unless this was just a spat that got out of control, it seems like they made their intentions clear. Their bigger problem is that it’s even more difficult for them to get rid of Hurts. They can trade Wentz and get some cap space back, but trading Hurts costs them about $90,000 more in cap space than keeping him on the team.
Pederson coddled Wentz, and routinely took the fall for things that were absolutely Wentz or Roseman’s fault. What Pederson wanted were two things that every head coach in the league gets: the freedom to assemble his own staff, and to install his offensive concepts without meddling from the front office or the quarterback going over his head to the owner. Basically Pederson wanted to be treated like the actual head coach instead of like he was just along for the ride.
People love to say Chip Kelly was a bad coach, but we know that’s not true in the overall sense. Dude turned New Hampshire and Oregon into college powerhouses. UNH! I didn’t even know they HAD a football team when my wife did her master’s degree there. He may not have gotten some things about the NFL, and chasing off good players wasn’t a great way to start, but haven’t those players had a rough go since then too (I can’t remember for sure, so I might be wrong here)? The year in San Fran was bad, but I don’t get the impression anyone was gonna succeed the way they were that year, and he was 10-6 his first 2 years in Philly. Take away the power struggle with Howie, and maybe things work out there too in time. He was the first guy to make Foles look good, after all.
You’re right. I meant he was a bad NFL coach. His offensive system is legal in college but not in the NFL, where the offense has to come set for a full second before snapping the ball. Because of that his greatest strength as a college coach – a system that can win with good athletes who are not necessarily superior football players – was neutralized and his offensive playcalling became predictable and stale.
I disagree. This had nothing to do with Wentz.
And TBH, I believe the rumors that painted Wentz in a bad light were all Howie undermining Doug.
The Jalen Hurts investment for the eagles has definitely turned out well for them. Carson Wentz should either be traded for Deshaun Watson, or to Atlanta. However, it looks like the Eagles want to stick with Hurts.
Nobody with half a brain cell would trade Watson for Wentz, and only Bill O Brien has less than half a brain cell. Plus, I don’t think quarterback is the problem anyway. A good offensive lineman would be welcome, or possibly a defensive player.
I meant Wentz for Watson and some picks or other players. I may be annoying, but I’m not that dumb.
I’ll let the rest of the fanbases in on a dirty little secret that Eagles fans try to keep hush-hush: Jeffrey Laurie is the worst owner in the league about handing out special treatment to his favorites.
Philly media like to say that so-and-so within the organization has “access to the batphone”. Howie Roseman has access to the batphone. Jason Peters has access to the batphone. Carson Wentz has access to the batphone. Doug Pederson never had access to the batphone Part of the reason the T.O.vs. McNabb beef blew up so spectacularly is because McNabb had the batphone and T.O. did not. It’s why Wentz was able to dictate to Doug Pederson what parts of the offense he was willing to run.
How does one get the batphone? By being buddies with Jeffrey Lurie. Big splash offensive players only. Jeffrey Lurie is a star fucker of the highest order. Jason Kelce wants access to the batphone (ever notice he’s always the guy coming out a day later putting out fires; talking about how wonderful the culture is?), but he was a sixth round pick. Doesn’t matter that he’s an All-Pro; a late round center is never going to get the batphone. Defenders have even less of a chance.
Jeffrey Lurie and Howie Roseman never put their faith in Doug Pederson because he was their 6th choice for head coach. He was given zero input on personel. None. Doug Pederson signed up to coach Sam Bradford and Chase Daniel. He wasn’t consulted about drafting Wentz. He wasn’t consulted about a single roster move Howie Roseman ever made. Everybody laughed at the Eagles for having an OC by committee approach this year. That happened because Lurie and Roseman forced him to fire his OC then provided him a pre-screened list of candidates to choose from to fill out his offensive staff. The man wasn’t even allowed to control his own staff.
Doug Pederson played in the league for 13 years. He coached in the league for 7 years before becoming head coach of the Eagles. He knows how teams are supposed to operate, and he recognized he wasn’t being treated fairly. He asked for the basic respect and freedom that any head coach should receive, let alone one who won a Super Bowl with a backup quarterback. When he didn’t get it, he resigned. Doug Pederson will be successful as an OC or HC with another organization that doesn’t chop his legs out from under him, and force him to coach with his hands tied together.
As to the principal actors involved it goes like this:
Jeffrey Lurie has an avuncular relationship with Howie Roseman that prevents him from being able to see his flaws.
Howie Roseman craves both credit and power. Howie Roseman is also an instinctive blame shifter. He can shift blame in his sleep. Any time Mort or Schefter releases a report with unnamed “sources inside the Eagles organization” it’s Howie that’s leaking things. Almost got him decked by Zach Ertz back in week 3.
Carson Wentz is according to all reports just the nicest guy you could possibly meet…outside of football. Inside the locker room he is a huge megalomaniac. He honestly thinks he’s a combination of Aaron Rodgers and Peyton Manning and that all should bow before his elite arm strength.
The only bad thing I’ve ever heard about Doug Pederson person-wise is that he cheated on his wife. That is between the two of them, and none of my concern. Every player not named Carson Wentz absolutely loves playing for Doug. He’s famed for having ’emotional intelligence’ so I don’t think the issue was that Doug was rubbing people the wrong way.
… and this is why you NEVER openly tank a game, kids.
Seriously, though, I wonder if he played to win that game, would things have turned out differently for him?
He tanked knowing he’d be gone, so he could watch the Eagles fuck up a better draft pick.
If he knew he’d be gone, why would he help them to a better pick? Any ill will he did on his way out would be undone by his firing, since they could pin it all on him and look like heroes. Wanting to help his boy Alex Smith reach the playoffs is the only conclusion I can make sense of, and he miscalculated the blowback.
It was not his call to make. It was never his call to make. This is orders from upstairs and now he’s the fall guy. Just like McAdoodoo
Maybe, I just… I don’t see what they were hoping to accomplish, if so. Having just destroyed a relationship with one qb, why would the have Dougie risk poisoning the well with the guy they just drafted, without even giving him a chance to play 4 full games. It’s possible… anything is possible, especially since we have so little info. But moving up a few places in the draft seems like a poor tradeoff to potentially damaging a rookie qb.
Had there not been a huge public blowback, I think Doug stays. Whether it was his call or not, he took the fall. Personally, I haven’t seen enough the last few seasons to believe things would get better under him moving forward. I know they’ve had injuries, but normally it’s the loser of the Super Bowl that falls apart. While they do have that championship, it’s very fair to wonder how much Frank had to do with that. The offense hasn’t performed the same since since the Super Bowl season, specifically Wentz from early season form. Maybe Wentz is too fragile to deal with the mental pressure in Philly (that’s not a lot, right?). It’s not the first time successful teams struggle after a good coordinator left though.
I think the tanking thing was a good set up to have people turn on Doug, if it was indeed a call from higher up. By all accounts, Doug is a players coach. So, if he caved to a call that essentially showed the players on the team otherwise, the risk was that he would lose respect in the locker room. More fans would likely be mad about an obvious tank job than a solid attempt to win. So, if there was a power struggle, Roseman put Dougie into a sure fire place to get rid of him. I think if I was Doug, I would have played to win the game that way if Roseman wanted him out, Roseman would be the one catching the grief over it.
Lurie knows that Roseman sucks at player evaluation, but refuses to do anything about it because Howie is his best bud, and has been since before the end of the Andy Reid era. Howie has won power struggles with Reid, Joe Banner, Joe Douglas, Chip Kelly, and Pederson.
In addition to the past several years of poor drafting, he was deeply involved with the 2011 draft, in which the Eagles managed to get *1* player (Jason Kelce, a 6th rounder) out of 11 picks, including taking a guy in the 1st round who was more interested in being a fireman. He passes up no-doubt-about-it picks like Justin Jefferson because doing the obvious won’t let him be known as a football genius.
Lurie spent almost half of the Q&A time of his Pederson firing press conference dancing around questions of why he refuses to hold Roseman accountable for anything. You should be happy Dave, the employment of Howie is pretty much the main reason that the SuperBowl year has turned into a complete fluke rather than a sustained run, as the main talent on the team is either old or hurt, and there is no real depth to replace them.
The Eagles should hire EDP445
I’d love to hear an EDP445 press conference after a loss.
OK, so who’s hiring Douggie? I could see him going to the Falcons or the Chargers as well as an outside chance of him being grabbed by the Lions. Do you guys think someone will pick him up right away or will he take a year or two off?