Former Eagles GM Joe Banner: Doug Pederson has a ‘very good chance’ of being hired as a head coach this offseason

Former Eagles president Joe Banner is doing a weekly Q&A with Inquirer Eagles reporter EJ Smith. This week, the two discuss how the recent COVID outbreaks have affected the league, how Nick Sirianni’s absence will impact the Eagles, Doug Pederson’s likelihood of landing another head-coaching job and the encouraging signs from Jalen Hurts last Tuesday.

EJ: How much do you think Nick Sirianni being quarantined with COVID-19 will affect the Eagles this week?

JB: It shouldn’t really affect them that much. Ironically, I wouldn’t have thought this before the fact, but it seems like the week of prep goes OK in the few instances we’ve had when the coach wasn’t present. But you can have a big change on game day.

I think the Browns not having Kevin Stefanski calling plays the other night may have changed the outcome of that game. That’s different than the prep that is such an intense 72-hour crash course on studying the other team, putting together the game plan, refining it and teaching it to the other players. That’s mostly done by the coordinators in the best of times anyway, with the oversight and approval of the head coach. But when you have a head coach who is also calling the plays, it does seem that there’s at least some consequence in some situations.

I think it would affect the Eagles on game day because they’ve been doing a reasonably good job in terms of the way they’re handling the game. If Nick isn’t there for that, I do think that would matter.

EJ: Since the last time we talked, the amount of COVID-19 cases across the league has skyrocketed. What’s your level of concern?

JB: It’s concerning both from a real-life and a football perspective. I think there’s reason to be hopeful that things won’t be this bad for too long, which is also a life and a football comment. I’m not pretending to be an expert, but it does seem like some of the rules the league is coming up with are somewhat risky. It seems like the players, if anything, were the more aggressive ones in wanting to change the rules and keep playing.

It’s kind of ironic, it seems to be an instinctive narrative to blame the league and call them greedy. We can argue whether or not that’s fair, but it seems in this instance it was the players that were even more adamant about not sticking with the original set of rules that was agreed to and making these changes. Hopefully they’re smart and nothing bad happens.

EJ: Do you think we’re getting to a point where players who have COVID, but are asymptomatic, will play and everyone will accept it?

JB: It seems that way. I’m going to watch if it’s on, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good idea. It does seem like we’re going to have players on the field, at least from what the media is reporting, who would be at some risk of infecting other players. If that’s the right medical statement, I don’t know if I would be comfortable with that if I were on either side of this discussion, but it seems to me that both sides, who are the only votes that matter, are OK with the outcome.

EJ: Were you surprised that the league finally budged on these game postponements? They’ve been so reluctant to do so in the past.

JB: I was surprised until I realized it was really the outcome, like I said, of the players being adamant about not missing games. This is an area where, if at all possible, you’d like to come to a consensus where both sides aren’t getting exactly what they want but they’re feeling OK about the outcome.

The owners, if what we’re hearing is true — which I think it is because some of it came from the mouth of the player’s union president in an interview on the record — it seems like the aggressiveness with which they changed everything kind of at the last minute on the fly was more a result of the players’ insistence of keeping going rather than the owners.

Don’t mistake that to think that both parties didn’t want to keep it going, but it seems like the players were willing to make more changes that could possibly adversely affect their health than the league was even expecting or at least initially asking for.

EJ: Do you think they’ll be able to finish the season?

JB: If they’re willing to literally do anything, change the rules, and — if it’s actually correct — put players on the field who are asymptomatic but have very recently been positive next to players that haven’t been, then you can finish the season if you’re willing to do that. That doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do or there aren’t going to be a bunch of bumps and maybe even a distorted outcome for the rest of the season based on this.

I’m not sitting here with some great alternative answer, so I’ll try to be at least a little subdued in the criticism if I don’t have some idea that I think could be better. But if they want to just plow through this and whoever is available is going to play and there’s other sources from which you can get players if that’s not enough, then they’ll get through it. That seems to be where they are right now.

» READ MORE: Joe Banner: Eagles should start Jalen Hurts, though he’s unlikely to be their long-term QB answer

EJ: What were your biggest takeaways from the game?

JB: My main takeaway was what I’ve been saying and was glad to see, I think they should be playing [Jalen] Hurts, which is no longer a question but was for a week after Gardner Minshew played so well. They want to develop Hurts the best they can; they want to be absolutely certain of what they have, and quite frankly if they decide he isn’t the answer, they’ll try to trade him and get the most they can for him.

If you recall, though, I also said if they’re going to play him, they need to give him a bigger role in the passing game because he needs to improve there and prove whether he can do it. Despite what the end-of-game statistics looked like, they threw the ball pretty aggressively early on.

Now he wasn’t facing a formidable opponent in terms of how wiped out they were, but you can’t do better than do your best in what you’re asked to do in any given game. I think they gave him some opportunities to learn more and improve in the passing game. I think, at least in that game against that opponent, he rose to the occasion. I hope that’s what they’re going to keep doing, because that’s the area that’s most important. If they’re either holding out hope that he’s the guy or they don’t think he’s the guy but they want to maximize what they’d get for him in a trade, they need to use these last few games to enhance people’s opinion of how well he can succeed in the passing game.

EJ: Urban Meyer was fired by the Jaguars since the last time we spoke. Do you think Doug Pederson would be a good fit in that job?

JB: I think Doug has a very good chance of getting one of the jobs depending on how many there are and having worked with Doug, I hope for that. But I can’t tell you any given team that would be best. There are two things that make NFL jobs particularly desirable to potential head coaches. They’re really simple, everybody knows them. One is the quality of the quarterback of the team and the second is the quality of the owner and his commitment to winning and the resources he’s willing to provide to support that.

In my mind, there’s reason to be extremely optimistic that Trevor Lawrence is going to be a top quarterback in this league. The owner has to still prove himself, but I know the owner, and I liked him from my moderate to limited interactions with him.

EJ: I suppose the best-case scenario for Pederson resembles Andy Reid’s path after getting fired. Do you see any similarities there?

JB: I hope Doug gets another chance and if he does I’m going to be rooting for him. Doug and Andy are very, very different in terms of what their strengths and weaknesses are and how they approach things. Their adaptability and, to some extent, even their philosophies are, although they certainly overlap a lot.

I’m going to be rooting for that to happen, but it has nothing to do with the Eagles. It’s just that Andy is a good guy and a great coach and Doug’s a good guy and won a Super Bowl in Philadelphia when none of the rest of us could. I hope he gets a chance and I’ll be rooting for him to do well.

» READ MORE: The easy thing is the right thing: Jaguars should hire Doug Pederson | David Murphy

EJ: I know we’re a little early for it, but are there any coaching candidates you’re starting to hear about?

JB: There’s definitely each year’s new group, but I think what will be more interesting to see is the number of jobs open. We’ve been on this kind of seven-to-nine replacements for quite a while, but we could have as little as three or four openings and I don’t really see a way we get beyond five or six.

It’s a thinner year, which is actually good because we need the talent of the candidates to kind of catch up with the number of changes. But that will affect the Dougs of the world and other people looking for another opportunity. It will be harder to get jobs, but there aren’t many coaches out there that have a Super Bowl win on their resume and somebody that people really enjoy working with.

EJ: I wanted to hit on some Pro Bowl stuff. It’s a favorable moment to look back at the Darius Slay trade, but I figured it’s a good one nonetheless. How does that trade look in retrospect?

JB: The way you asked that question is the key. If we say he was acquired for two years at a fairly significant cap cost and fairly modest compensation, I think you’d say he’s kind of doing what you’d expect. I would say over the two years, he’s played well, whereas this year he’s played great. Last year I didn’t think he played particularly well, so I’m averaging them together to say he’s played well.

It was a good move, but part of the reason they struggled so badly last year is because he didn’t play well. That, combined with what we’ve seen with the defensive line getting less and less dominant since the Super Bowl year, that’s had a big impact on the win-loss record. You know what he’s capable of and what I think they thought they were getting for three years is what we’re seeing now. We didn’t get it last year, we got it this year and hopefully he’ll still have it next year and can stay healthy as he gets older.

EJ: Javon Hargrave was probably the Eagles player I was most surprised didn’t get into the Pro Bowl. What did you make of him not getting in?

JB: I think he should’ve got in, but this is why you have to be a little careful with how much weight you put on the Pro Bowl. The people that vote aren’t even pretending that they’ve watched all 32 offensive centers and to know who’s first, second, and third. That’s just not what’s happening.

Guys like Hargrave, who have had a really good year but don’t have conspicuous highlight plays on a regular basis aren’t going to be known the way he is in Philadelphia around the country. So he gets unfairly downgraded, some other players get unfairly upgraded just because they’re big names. Like I said, the deciders aren’t necessarily the people studying it the way you’d ideally like them to to make sure you’re getting the right people.

I understand it’s important to players and you want it to be because they take pride in themselves. When they have really good years you’d like to see them rewarded, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s had a really good year.

EJ: This time last year, the lack of young talent on the Eagles roster really stood out as the Pro Bowl selections were announced. They still don’t have any players under 30-years-old going to Las Vegas, but what do you think of the progress they’ve made in that area?

JB: What I said last year was that they had to think of this as a multiyear problem. They’re not going to solve it in one year and if they thought they did, they’re underestimating the problem. I think they made progress, in fact, I think there’s a chance they’ve made significant progress, although we need to see further development and the utilization of these three first-round picks.

We have actual names now that we can say are good players like Jordan Mailata and we have players, some from this year’s draft, that have a chance to be really good players. I don’t want to define success by making the Pro Bowl as opposed to playing well. I do think that they have some legitimate young players.

They have a ways to go, though. The offense is getting much closer, depending on the quarterback, but the defense has a long way to go. I mean, their philosophy is to build a dominant defensive line. You can look around the league and see why that’s a good idea. They have a long way to go to do that. They’re further away from that than they’ve been in a long time.