Fly, Eagles, fly, on the road to misery.
Dysfunction ripping through the Eagles organization came to a head this offseason, with Super Bowl-winning head coach Doug Pederson ousted after a will-they-won’t-they saga that lasted months. Carson Wentz soon followed Pederson out the door as he was traded to Indianapolis, and the Eagles are entering a new era.
In a new report from the Athletic, the Eagles front office reportedly gave Pederson hell, putting the head coach in the crosshairs throughout his tenure with Philadelpha, starting in 2017 with the team reportedly leaning on defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz to be a replacement in case Pederson was fired.
“(Pederson) was ridiculed and criticized for every decision,” the report reads. “If you won by three, it wasn’t enough. If you lost on a last-second field goal, you’re the worst coach in history.”
Pederson was treated “like a baby,” the report says.
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“The fact that Doug had the success he did with all the s— going on in the building, sometimes I look at our Super Bowl rings, and I’m like, ‘Holy cow, I don’t know how we did it,'” a source told The Athletic.
The report also says that Pederson was at odds with multiple factions within the Eagles front office, namely the analytics department; the report also paints general manger Howie Roseman in a less-than-positive light, with Roseman’s image consciousness and paranoia over organizational leaks as character detriments leading to skepticism in the front office.
Owner Jeffrey Lurie is also painted in the report as meddlesome, forcing Pederson to make staff decisions that he didn’t agree with, including having to let go of assistants Mike Groh and Carson Walch after the 2019 season, moves that Pederson did not want to make.
Pederson also had to “fight” to keep offensive coordinator Frank Reich after 2016. The Eagles would win the Super Bowl with Reich as offensive coordinator the following season.
Pederson, fired in January, is currently without a job. The Eagles move forward with Nick Sirriani as head coach this season.
But if the dysfunction persists, it won’t matter who’s patrolling the sidelines on Sundays.