Give Pederson a chance
I can’t tell you whether Doug Pederson is going to be a good head coach or a bad coach. I can’t tell you whether he’s going to be the next Bill Belichick or the next Rob Chudzinski. And neither can you.
I can't tell you whether Doug Pederson is going to be a good head coach or a bad coach.
I can't tell you whether he's going to be the next Bill Belichick or the next Rob Chudzinski.
And neither can you.
Everybody has had an opinion on Pederson ever since it was reported nearly two weeks ago that he was a leading candidate to replace Chip Kelly.
About 95 percent of those opinions have been negative. Mostly, it's been guilt by association. He works for Andy Reid, therefore he must be awful.
Never mind that Reid is a very good coach. Yes, he committed the unpardonable sin of failing to win a Super Bowl in the 14 years he coached the Eagles. But they made the playoffs 10 times under Reid. They went to five NFC Championship Games and one Super Bowl under Reid.
The Chiefs have been to the playoffs twice in three years since Reid took that job.
People act like Reid and Pederson's offense is inept and that the Chiefs have won strictly with defense this season.
That's not exactly true. They finished ninth in scoring and sixth in rushing even though their star running back, Jamaal Charles, played in only five games.
Pederson's quarterback, Alex Smith, threw just seven interceptions, had a 65.3 completion percentage and finished 10th in the league in passer rating.
People have criticized the Eagles for "bungling'' their coaching search. For moving too slow and letting all of the good candidates get away.
Adam Gase? What's he done to make you think he's going to be a better head coach than Pederson?
Ben McAdoo? He runs the same West Coast offense that Pederson's going to be bringing to Philadelphia.
Tom Coughlin? That one never made any sense from the get-go. You're just mad because you're not going to be able to use all of those Depends and assisted-living jokes.
As Bill Cowher correctly pointed out Wednesday, you shouldn't rush the selection of a head coach. It's one of the two most important decisions an owner has to make. The other, which may be even more important than hiring a coach, is hiring a personnel chief. But that's an issue for another day.
When the Steelers hired Cowher in 1992, he was the eighth of nine coaches hired that January.
"The one thing they did was they took their time,'' Cowher said Wednesday. "I talked to them six or seven different times (before they hired him). One of those conversations with Mr. (Dan) Rooney was strictly about family because he was just trying to get to know me.
"Sometimes, I think some of these (coaching hire) decisions that are made are made too much thinking about, 'Well, we're going to lose out on this coach or that coach.' I would much rather move slower and make sure I got the right guy rather than getting what everybody else perceives to be the right guy.
"Because coaching is about a relationship. It's about building something that is sustainable. And I think too many times, owners are looking at what they see on the outside of a book and don't even know what's on the inside of that book.''
Many Eagles fans have looked at the outside of the book on Doug Pederson and already have concluded that he's a horrible hire.
Maybe you're right and maybe you're not. But at least give him a chance. Stop holding those nine 1999 starts against him.
