LIE and say that this hire excites you. I dare you to do it without bursting into flames. In all truth I can’t say I like it either, but until he proves us right, we the fans have to live with Doug Pederson as the leader of our beloved Eagles. I could sit here and rail against it, or what I could do is find something about it to like. Find something in it that I can root for each Sunday. When I looked there were already a couple of things that jumped out at me.
Doug Pederson is not a genius. That’s not sarcasm for he’s an idiot, that’s listing not being a genius as a strength. When both Andy Reid and Chip Kelly got here, they were already hailed as leading minds in their areas of expertise; and both men in some way or another attempted to reinvent the wheel in a game as straightforward as football. Pederson isn’t that guy, so his approach will likely be more traditional in nature.
Doug Pederson wasn’t a very good Offensive Coordinator. This year the Chiefs ranked 27th in yards. Last year they ranked 25th. The year before it was 21st. So every year they got worse under him. This means he isn’t going to be married to one side of the ball as his savior. In fact if anything, he’s a former OC who has learned (through his own failures) the value of a strong Defense.
Doug Pederson is a former NFL player. He can relate to players in a way that neither of our last two head coaches could have. He understands what it means to be benched, and can tell a guy that there is an upside to helping groom the man beneath him on the depth chart, as Pederson did for Donovan McNabb.
Doug Pederson has had no bad teachers. Pederson has spent his entire NFL career learning from Andy Reid, and still has his teacher’s brain to pick over stuff. What that will mean now, remains to be seen. However, at least no one can claim his education in and about this league is lacking. Which is a far cry from what I was saying when Kelly was hired.
Doug Pederson is under no illusions. He’s familiar with the Jeff Lurie/Howie Roseman dynamic. He even knows some of the talent that’s still here (Brandon Graham, Mychal Kendricks, Jason Kelce, Brent Celek, Riley Cooper, Fletcher Cox, etc.) . He knows the Eagles are a mess and it’s his job to clean it up. And he knows how the media and fans will be if he doesn’t.
So it’s not ALL bad. In fact there are some building blocks here. So while I’m not thrilled with this hire, I’m not going to belly-ache about it either. After spending three years not believing in Kelly, I’m STARVING for a coach I can get behind again. So I’m going to take a leap of faith based on these good signs and cast my lot with Pederson. No “if’s”. No “buts”. No hedging my bets.
I’m all in.
EAGLEMANIACAL.com 
Jeffrey Lurie runs the show and is a hands on owner. Thats the facts thats why he has a guy he can easily control. Its the Jeff and Howie show and always has been.
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That’s fine with me. If they can build a winner, then what do I care who runs it?
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That is a valid point but they had twenty years previously to do that and came up way short. So what makes this model any different that what we had in 2000 except we lack the talent.
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Where did they come up short except for a SB win? Lurie has improved the value and social standing of an organization (not team) that was teetering on the edge of disaster when he bought it. In a very real sense the guy has rescued this franchise, but for fans to understand that they’d have to look OFF the field.
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Ok so we agree that they feel most comfortable in this management set up but can we least agree at that Jeff Lurie is a “hands on” owner and place that into conversation. That will be personal victory for me.
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I can’t say that I see Lurie as “hands on”. Keep in mind I also follow the Raiders (who had Al Davis) and we play in a conference that has Jerry Jones in it. Neither of those organizations had a Howie Roseman/Joe Banner type, and neither ever showed signs of internal power struggles since the owner was always the clear lead dog. Lurie is no Norman Braman, but he’s also no Al Davis.
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Really? I have friends in Balto that have watched this unfold and they compare him to Jerry Jones. And these are fans watching from afar. Maybe their different perspective gives them a more objective view. Question: If Jeff lurie is not running the team what does he do at the Nova Care complex all day?
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My guess is managing and paying the people he hired to actually run the day to day of his team.
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So why is he there day to day?
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My guess is to manage the people he hired to actually run the day to day of his team.
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And besides, do you REALLY think he’s putting 40 hours in that building? REALLY?
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Thats a very good question. But I run my business with limited face time with employees so Im not sure of the demands. I just did a tour of a professional basketball facility and was sort of surprised of the simplicity of it in terms of how the departments are set up and the number of employees. Like Ive said to you in the past, each business has different unique ways of operating but overall whether its a a small buiness, a construction company, a wholsale distributor, a manufacturer , a restaurant..etc. the same general rules apply. But from what I gather he is a regular at the site which means he is gathering operational information almost daily.
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I’d expect that gathering data is 80% of what he does there. I mean what could he be doing on a daily basis there? Scouting? Drawing up game plans? Breaking down film? Teaching technique? Fiddling with the salary cap? What exactly do you think he has his hands on?
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Big decisions. Like eg- Do we keep McCoy. Thats an owners decision . Thats a decision I would make in my context. If a midlevel supervisor wants to fire someone he knows he has to run it by me. Thats hands on.
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And yet that’s not how it worked. You can’t seriously think Lurie wanted to trade the teams all-time leading rusher for a guy still re-habbing a chronically injured knee. Or signing a an injury prone QB and paying him 1/10 of the teams salary cap on a one year deal. Those type of things are 180 degrees from who Lurie has been for 22 years here.
Nothing about these last three years have resembled how Lurie has done business in his first 19.
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I do not agree. Now I cannot claim I understand the ins and outs about how money is spent inside a football team but year in and out it appears that Lurie is at the lower end of spending and the upper end of profitability. But more important than the numbers being fed for public consumption is that we have multiple instances of veteran players leaving in disputes. Eg Owens, Trotter, Dawkins, Simon… just to name a few. And thae manner they left followed a well coordinated smear campaign. So lets not classify Luries business practices as so openly identifiable.
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Earlier this year you said that you thought I must be getting inside information. I wasn’t. It’s just that the Eagles have a pattern that’s not hard to identify if you look at it dispassionately and aren’t looking for someone to put blame on. The fact is there is no blame to be had here. The Eagles are first and foremost a business, and a highly profitable one at that. You don’t lay blame for that, you give credit for it.
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That is true. And the Eagles run a very financially sound business. I guess in some respects its pretty impressive that an owner without another source of income can pay himself and keep a decent product on the field. I guess it could be much worse. But keep in mind he got maybe the best sweetheart deal in football. Take that away and hes got nothing.
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My concern is for the team Lurie owns. I have no interest in picking apart what the man does and doesn’t have in his life.
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Pingback: WHY I’M BEHIND DOUG PEDERSON | EAGLEMANIACAL.com
I wasn’t happy with the Doug Pederson hire. Then again I wasn’t happy with the hiring or Reid or Kelly either. The only time I can recall liking a hire was Ray Rhodes, and that cause he was black, a defensive guy, and came from the Packers, and 49ers coaching tree. I don’t know what Pederson is going to bring to the table, but I need to see him in action before I judge him. Maybe he can be like Harbaugh and wins the Championship that still eludes Andy Reid. We shall all see.
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Fingers crossed!
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