Does Eagles coach Doug Pederson get an easier task this time? | Bob Ford
Pederson has taken the Eagles deep into the playoffs without his starting quarterback. Maybe he'll get lucky this time.
Doug Pederson has pulled off the most impressive moves of his head-coaching career without his franchise quarterback, which is quite a trick. The pinnacle, of course, was the offense he rebuilt in December 2017, when gangly, often unimpressive Nick Foles became the starter on a team already positioned for a deep playoff run.
Pivoting from a mobile gunslinger of a quarterback, who could extend plays and gain yards with his legs, to Foles, who needed to be in the pocket and needed an arsenal of medium-range targets with check-down trapdoors, was a postgraduate-level exam for Pederson.
The story goes that Pederson simply tossed the playbook on the table and said, “Tell me which ones you like.” Whatever philosophy Pederson, Frank Reich, and the staff had devised for the previous offense, no matter how brilliant and successful, the coach was willing to take his ego out of it and start over. There are probably other coaches who would have acted the same way, but there ain’t 32 of them.
The task wasn’t as large last season, when Foles became the starter again because the Eagles had gone through it already, but Pederson had to manage it with a team that wasn’t as skilled as the previous one, and didn’t possess a running-game threat to protect the quarterbacks.
As Pederson opens his fourth training camp this week, he has made his bones as an offensive strategist. Maligned as the “least qualified” head-coaching candidate among the seven hired for the 2016 season, Pederson is the only one still in the same job.
His genius is to make it never about him. That is an understandable mindset for a career backup, but once guys get into the corner office, they tend to change. Pederson hasn’t changed, and he defers to the players on their preferences in the same way he has deferred to the front office on personnel decisions.
He is smart enough to know that, even if he is right, creating battles with those two constituencies is not a formula for sustained employment. The most threatening thing about Pederson is that he isn’t, which can lead others to underestimate him. For most of his three seasons, that has proved to be a mistake.
The current challenge, much like Pederson, doesn’t appear intimidating from afar. He has won without Carson Wentz in the most important games of the season. This time, at least hopefully, the job is to do it with him.
There would have been little blowback on the coach if he lost games without the franchise quarterback. The pressure will intensify this season with Wentz available. (Sound of fans knocking wood all over the Philadelphia area.)
Well, what’s so tough? Wentz improved his accuracy last season, even as he returned slowly from knee surgery, and apparently dealt with a stress fracture in his back that was either not detected or not reported for a number of weeks. His 69.6 percentage for completions was third in the league.
He was in the top seven for quarterback rating and, among that group, only Drew Brees had a higher completion percentage. Wentz did have the lowest yards-per-completion figure among the leaders, but opposing defenses didn’t give Eagles quarterbacks a lot of time, and the team’s deep threats never materialized.
The front office has addressed those concerns by bringing back DeSean Jackson and drafting J.J. Arcega-Whiteside for the receiving corps, and adding Jordan Howard and Miles Sanders at running back. How significant those upgrades actually are is a worthy debate, but the presence of Wentz is still the trump card.
Pederson gets his quarterback this summer at full strength, at least as far as can be told. Wentz comes in having received a massive four-year contract extension that won’t affect the team’s salary flexibility this season but will begin to have an impact in 2020.
It seems early to say the clock is ticking on the Wentz era, but he will turn 27 this year and will need to quickly become a quarterback capable of leading an offense that, down the road, counts him as its most talented component by a lot.
The responsibility for making that happen lies with the head coach, and it will be fascinating to see how Pederson charts the course. If he has shown a weakness, it is that he can get pass-happy in the fog of war. Of course, anyone who stood next to Andy Reid for that many years would have the same inclination.
To protect Wentz a little, and to employ a balanced offense, those new running backs have to be put in position to succeed. With LeGarrette Blount and Jay Ajayi for most of 2017, Pederson did run more (75 more regular-season carries than in 2018), but he also had the lead in more games.
A fast start to the season and a fast start to games — neither of which happened last year — will go a long way to maximizing the team’s potential. Having Wentz at training camp ready to rock might be the biggest part of getting those fast starts.
Doug Pederson pulls on his visor and prepares to show everyone how it will be done. People will listen. He’s not only a championship coach; he’s also the star student of the underachieving class of 2016.
Imagine that: the least-qualified guy. It turned out the qualifications that mattered weren’t the ones that could be seen from the outside.