The Eagles came into the 2020 season with high expectations, but they are a bad football team. Even worse, they aren’t showing any signs of getting better even as they have gotten healthier over the last several weeks. The offense, the head coach’s playcalling, and the team’s franchise quarterback are a disaster, and the defense is an underrated issue that has been overlooked for years now.
Fans are upset. Players and coaches are confused. The front office has remained silent. And perhaps most importantly, the owner of the team has been visibly frustrated.
Doug Pederson’s press conferences, which have always been awkward, have bordered on bizarre for the past month.
And now, there are reports that, yes, Eagles head coach Doug Pederson is on the hot seat.
Early on Sunday morning, just hours before the Eagles were scheduled to face the Packers in Green Bay, Ian Rapoport reported that Doug Pederson is among the current NFL head coaches who could lose their jobs:
“Despite winning a Super Bowl three years ago with a backup QB, advancing to the divisional round the following year and winning the division just last year, Pederson finds himself on the hot seat with his future in doubt, sources say. There is no guarantee he returns in 2021 despite his record, and the struggles of Wentz — and the lack of answers — would be part of that.
The public has begun speculating on Pederson’s future, and some in the building have done the same, fearing that Pederson’s job is on the line. They can sense the tension, the frustration, the disgust and the search for a resolution.”
Some have wondered whether firing Doug Pederson is the right move given what Rapoport mentioned above: winning a Super Bowl, advancing to the divisional round, and then winning the division in 2019. But the truth is that this Eagles team has drastically regressed since their magical Super Bowl run in 2017. Yes, they have still managed to make the playoffs, but they have done so largely because they play in the worst division in the NFL.
If the Eagles don’t play in the NFC East, does Doug Pederson even make it to 2020 as the team’s head coach?
What about Howie Roseman?
Rapoport doesn’t mention Eagles general manager Howie Roseman in his report. However, that hasn’t stopped others from evaluating the job he has done and his level of responsibility for the current state of the Eagles.
In a recent piece for The Philadelphia Inquirer, Jeff McLane took a look at the job Roseman has done over the last decade:
“Lurie’s trust in Roseman has long been established. He exonerated him for the end of the Andy Reid era, even though he was the ex-Eagles coach’s personnel lieutenant from 2010-12. He restored his front office standing after Kelly’s firing in 2015, even though he was one-half of a power struggle that ripped the team apart. And if Pederson were to fall under the knife for this squad’s decline, and Roseman were to return, Lurie would be setting a modern-day precedent for how many coaches a GM was involved in hiring.
The owner excused Roseman for the personnel mistakes of 2010-12 by saying that he had kept voluminous notes on evaluation success and failures. He used Kelly’s implosion to shepherd Roseman back into control. And he has a ring that could be reason enough to retain the GM beyond this season. But there can’t be any plausible redirection for a series of decisions that have backfired at almost every turn.”
While Roseman appeared to push all of the right buttons in 2017, he has more embarrassing blunders than home runs. There are just a few of the lowlights:
- Extending Alshon Jeffery and then redoing his deal to guarantee his salary for 2020;
- Trading a fourth-round pick for Genard Avery;
- Drafting, gulp, J.J. Arcega-Whiteside in the second round of the 2019 NFL Draft
- Selecting quarterback Jalen Hurts and linebacker Davion Taylor—a backup quarterback and a developmental linebacker—in the 2020 NFL Draft despite having a roster filled with obvious holes;
- Not acquiring help at the wide receiver position this offseason (DeAndre Hopkins, Stefon Diggs, Robby Anderson);
- Signing Javon Hargrave to an expensive long-term deal this past offseason;
- Building a 2020 roster around oft-injured veterans like Jason Peters and DeSean Jackson;
- Keeping Jeffery on the active roster through the first two-plus months of the season instead of keeping him on PUP;
- Drafting the likes of Shareef Miller, Clayton Thorson, Mack Hollins, Donnel Pumphrey, Shelton Gibson;
Some of the younger players mentioned above still have time to turn things around, but the early returns have not been good, especially when compared to other players who were available at the time.
The Eagles have not been good in 2020, and they have been getting steadily worse since 2017. Doug Pederson deserves a share, perhaps even a majority, of the blame for the team’s performance in 2020.
But Howie Roseman should be held responsible for the team’s regression over the last four years. If Pederson is fired after the 2020 season, Roseman probably shouldn’t be the person in charge of hiring his replacement.
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Mike Maher is the editor and publisher of The Birds Blitz. Follow him on Twitter @mikeMaher and @TheBirdsBlitz and check out his archive for all of his latest stories about the Eagles and the NFL.
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