Eagles coach Doug Pederson: Last man hired, last man standing. | Marcus Hayes

And the last shall be first.

As of Jan. 18, 2016, seven head coaches were hired in the NFL. As of Black Monday 2018, the annual coaching purge, six of them had been fired.

Only Doug Pederson remained. You’d have gotten excellent odds if you’d made that bet on Jan. 18, 2016.

“All I can remember is, I think, I was seventh of seven that year,” Pederson said Monday, with a big, self-satisfied smile. “That’s all I remember.”

Riiiight.

Surely, Pederson also remembers that, among Adam Gase, Ben McAdoo, Dirk Koetter, Hue Jackson, Mike Mularkey, and Chip Kelly, his predecessor, Pederson was cast as the least qualified hire among the seven. Worse, he was considered a consolation prize for the Eagles.

Gase, fired by the Dolphins on Monday, was the first outside candidate the Eagles interviewed, but he wanted control of the roster and Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie wasn’t about to make his Chip Kelly mistake again. McAdoo always wanted to stay with the Giants, and they wanted him to stay, so he did, until he was fired in the middle of his second season.

Tom Coughlin had just left the Giants, and he interviewed with the Eagles, but Coughlin withdrew from consideration. He became the Dark Lord of the Jaguars a year later. Jackson lasted 2 1/2 putrid seasons with the Browns.

Koetter and Mularkey were promoted by Tampa Bay and Tennessee, respectively, but Mularkey was bizarrely dismissed last January. Koetter, who beat the Eagles in Game 2 this season, was axed Sunday. Kelly lasted just one Kaepernick-addled season in San Francisco.

Chronologically, Pederson is correct; he was the seventh of the seven. The Eagles decided Friday, Jan. 14, 2016 that they would hire him, but he was the Chiefs' offensive coordinator, so they waited until after the Chiefs lost to the Patriots in the playoffs that Sunday to officially announce the hiring.

Critically, Pederson is even more accurate.

Pederson’s hiring was roundly criticized in the moment. He’d never been a play-caller as an offensive coordinator either in college or in the NFL. He’d never been a head coach outside high school.

Pederson’s hiring was further derided after the 2016 season, which was marred by a five-game losing streak and a string of player issues, including a mini-insurrection. Pederson questioned players' effort following a loss in Cincinnati.

That incident turned out to be the watershed moment in building Pederson’s particular culture. The players' leadership committee balked at what it perceived as a betrayal.

Pederson listened. He challenged the players to assume more responsibility for their actions and their fates. The blueprint of a champion was born. They survived a flood of injuries, including Carson Wentz’s shredded knee in Game 13 last season, and won the Super Bowl.

They have survived even more injuries this season, including Wentz’s latest, a fractured vertebra, diagnosed after Game 13. According to fivethirtyeight.com, that loss at Dallas left the Eagles with just a 13 percent chance to make the playoffs just before kickoff of Game 14.

You probably wouldn’t have rated Pederson’s chances of survival over his six rivals at 13 percent back on Jan. 18, 2016. Especially if you were told that it hinged on Nick Foles.

Both last season and this, Foles, Pederson’s backup-quarterback spirit-brother, won every significant game and led the team to the postseason. But then, adding Foles -- ebullient, devout, and loyal -- fit neatly into the culture that Pederson had built.

To be clear: Pederson’s self-satisfaction Monday had nothing to do with the fates of the other coaches. It had everything to do with validation.

“I’m not going to speak for the other guys, but I had a lot of confidence in myself,” Pederson said. "I feel like you have to surround yourself with really, really good assistant coaches, good coordinators, and guys that love ball and love to teach."

That might be true, but the genius of Pederson lies less in football smarts than in his emotional intelligence.

Lurie borrowed the phrase from Daniel Coleman’s 2005 book after he fired Kelly, who was cast as abrasive and clinical, then hired Pederson a month later. It is that element of empathy and inclusion that helped Pederson transform Kelly’s 2015 disaster into a Super Bowl champion two years later.

This season, Pederson’s gift of decency and dialogue allowed the Birds to rebound from a 4-6 start and a humiliating 48-7 loss in New Orleans to a 9-7 finish and the No. 6 seed in the NFC playoffs with a 24-0 win at Washington on Sunday. Even those closest to Pederson were awestruck at the turnaround.

“After New Orleans, it’s really incredible what’s happened here,” one Eagles front-office member said after Sunday’s game. “And it’s all Doug.”

The loss to the Saints was the worst lost ever by a reigning Super Bowl champion. Nevertheless, the Eagles won five of their last six games despite losing Wentz and despite playing without four of their five starting defensive backs. What might have been an implosion after New Orleans instead galvanized the players further.

“We have our issues, and every team does, but none of that matters,” said center Jason Kelce. “We didn’t point the fingers inward. The players didn’t go into self-preservation mode.”

No, they went into team-preservation mode. Kelce, Malcolm Jenkins, Fletcher Cox, and Wentz had seen enough incomplete preparation and lackadaisical practicing.

Pederson credits the run to the postseason to that committee: "Guys that, after New Orleans, rose up and challenged the guys: ‘It’s time to go! We have to get this fixed!’ "

The dynamic created by Pederson’s emotional intelligence saved the season at halftime the next week. With the Eagles trailing the Giants by eight points, the offensive line asked Pederson to run the ball more. The defense asked coordinator Jim Schwartz to soften coverages to simplify things for the replacement defensive backs.

Imagine players asking Bill Belichick, Bill Parcells, or Mike Ditka to scrap their strategies -- at halftime.

But then, Belichick, Parcells, and Ditka aren’t Doug Pederson.

From early-morning attitudes to sideline posture, the leaders attend to every detail.

“He’s done a good job of leaning on his leadership, putting the pressure on the team to really set the pace in everything we do,” Jenkins said. “Our preparation. The way we practice. Our energy when we come in the building. Our body language when we’re on the sideline. Making sure we’re the ones having fun, and the rest of the team follows.”

Interaction and inclusion might not be the best formula for every team. It might not work for Pederson in five years, or even in two, and he might abandon it. The best coaches adapt to the personnel they are given. This is the perfect coaching style, for this group of players, in this moment.

A group of players that, against all odds, like Pederson, is still standing.

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