Murphy: Eagles' Pederson knows how to run an NFL team

Let's start with the timeouts, because that is what the conversation always turned to with the other guy, isn't it? Not the last guy. The guy before that guy. The guy we ran out of town in part because of a frustrating penchant for failing to bank them for the parts of games in which they are most necessary.

Through two games, Doug Pederson has yet to waste a timeout. In fact, of the 12 he has had at his disposal in his first four halves as an NFL play-caller, the Eagles' first-year head coach has used just six. We haven't had a chance to see how he might put them to use in a late-and-close situation - outscoring opponents 58-24 kinda limits those opportunities - but the point is, they were there. Of the six timeouts he has spent, three came in the final two minutes of his two first halves, both of which saw the Eagles in position to run a final drive that resulted in points. The other timeouts were spent late in the fourth quarter, with a victory already in hand.

Maybe that's a silly way to start an argument that says the Eagles have found themselves a guy who looks like he should be a head coach in this league for a very long time, but, then, it's kind of a silly argument to make at this juncture. Two games, two inferior opponents with suspect defenses and, it turns out, two quarterbacks playing through injuries. Yet it was right around three years ago this time that we were already zeroing in on some of the blind spots in Chip Kelly's game, including a curious batch of time-management in a Week 2 loss to the Chargers. Put another way: If we hadn't seen everything we've seen and instead saw Pederson grimacing and mouth-breathing his way through camera shot after camera shot of his quarterback jogging to the sideline after another first-quarter play he couldn't get off in time, we certainly wouldn't be telling ourselves to wait for a larger sample size.

The reality, of course, is that there is no good way to quantify coaching performance, other than those pesky little numbers in the win and loss columns. But the brand of football we've seen the Eagles play in wins over the Browns and Bears is one that deserves some attention. The easiest way to describe it involves a heavy dose of subjective, abstract terms. They look crisp. They cohesive. They look organized. We don't really oil our machines anymore, but if we did, they'd be a well-oiled one.

The time management is a very small slice of that, at least with regard to a coach's overall portfolio. But it is an indication that Pederson is running an efficient operation, from his organization of his coaching staff to his preparation of his players to his communication throughout the vast apparatus of individuals involved in making an NFL team look like an NFL team. In short, there is no chaos.

The Eagles have been penalized for just 80 yards, eighth fewest in the NFL. They are among 13 teams that have yet to be flagged for delay of game. They are one of only three teams that have yet to commit a turnover (the Cardinals and the Raiders are the others). They are 4-for-4 on fourth-down conversions.

"As a coach, something that I learned, too, is it is my job to get the guys ready and prepared not only mentally but physically for the football game," Pederson said Tuesday at his weekly day-after-game news conference. "But that's one thing that I'll continue to pride myself in doing. And make sure these guys are ready to go every week. It's a new set of challenges each week. You've got to put this one to rest and move on. But I've been pleased. Two-and-zero is a good start to the season. It's still a lot of hard work and a lot of road left ahead of us."

As convoluted as the Eagles' process seemed this offseason, the early returns suggest that they have landed themselves the two biggest determinants of sustained NFL success: a smart quarterback who can make all the throws, and a head coach who has his house in order. Right up until the start of the season, there was plenty of reason to question the odds of either playing out the way we've seen. While Pederson had spent 12 years in the NFL as a quarterback, he had only been a member of an NFL coaching staff since 2008. While he had spent three seasons as the Chiefs' offensive coordinator, he had yet to call a full NFL game (Andy Reid had those duties in Kansas City). Not only does Pederson appear to have a firm grasp on all of the ancillary responsibilities of a coach, he has spent his first two games drawing up and executing an intuitive, diversified, efficient offensive game plan that has put his rookie quarterback in a position to do all of the things he does best while limiting his exposure to situations where rookie quarterbacks often struggle. Again, it helps to start things off with the Bears and the Browns, but Hue Jackson and John Fox are both veteran NFL coaches, and while the Eagles might have been operating with a significant talent advantage, particularly on the outside, Pederson's troops weren't supposed to be the kind of team that can write off wins against anybody. Jim Tomsula, Mike Pettine, Greg Schiano - the fear when the Eagles hired Pederson was that they could end up with a lemon, a guy so far over his skis that we'd see it for Day 1.

We haven't seen it. Anything but. On offense, they've scored on 45.8 percent of their drives, tied for fifth in the NFL. They rank 29th in the league at 4.9 yards per play, yet they are tied for 10th with 44 first downs. Their average drive has lasted 3 minutes and 9 seconds, behind only the Cowboys, Jets and Patriots. On defense, they've allowed a score on just 13 percent of possessions, by far the best mark in the league.

Two weeks into a schedule that quickly turns hellacious is far too early a time to say a lot things about a coach and his team. But after three years of watching Gimmick Ball at warp speed, we've already seen enough to say that Pederson has a firm handle on how an NFL team should play.

@ByDavidMurphy