He didn’t win as many games as Andy Reid or have the same kind of love fans showered upon Buddy Ryan and Dick Vermeil, but Doug Pederson is the only one of them to lead the Eagles to a Super Bowl championship.
Pederson is responsible for a kind of euphoria Eagles fans had never felt before, a win over the dynastic New England Patriots on Feb. 4, 2018, in Super Bowl LII, followed by a championship parade that was like nothing ever seen before in Philly and hasn’t been seen since.
Pederson can’t wait to return again when he brings his Jacksonville Jaguars to Lincoln Financial Field on Sunday (4:05 p.m./CBS). This won’t be his first time back with the Jags. He brought them here on Oct. 2, 2022, but, after holding a 14-0 lead after the first quarter, lost 29-21.
“The fans are great,” he said. “Obviously, we won a championship there. And we still got a lot of close friends, family friends. That place is always going to be one of the spots for me that I enjoy going back to.”
Pederson is a coach in trouble this time around. His team was supposed to be built to push for a Super Bowl berth. Instead, they are sitting at 2-6 with an offense ranked 14th in the league and a defense ranked 29th.
A loss in Philly, and, well, maybe Pederson isn’t on the return flight to northeast Florida.
That, of course, isn’t on the coach’s mind, though Jalen Hurts will certainly occupy some of his thoughts this week.
Hurts is playing some of the best football of his carrer, having gone three straight games without a turnover while accounting for nine touchowns in that span.
Pederson was the coach who gave liftoff to Hurts’ career after pulling the plug on a struggling Carson Wentz months after the Eagles had selected Hurts in the second round of the 2020 draft.
Pederson benched a struggling Wentz in Week 13 and brought Hurts in to finish what became a 30-16 loss to the Green Bay Packers. Hurts made his first start the following week on Dec. 13 and led the Eagles to a win over the New Orleans Saints.
“He was a bright mind, a bright mind,” said Hurts who completed16-of-25 passes for 204 yards in the Eagles’ win over the Jags two years ago. “When I came into the league, I realized that everybody had a different way of seeing the game.
“His way of seeing the game was unique, but he could always spit it to you and dumb it down. So I think how he presents his scheme, his strategy, that’s something that’s really good, and you don’t want to make it harder than what it is – I think that was his approach with it.”
Hurts never wants to make things bigger than they are, and he certainly isn’t for this game. It is, after all, the second time he will face the coach that gave him his first shot in the NFL. Pederson, though, knows all too well the challenge Hurts brings.
“The challenge is his ability to create plays – the ones that aren’t there, and he makes it,” said Pederson. “He’s really good outside the pocket. He’s tough to bring down. He’s strong, powerful. And he’s improved so much in the passing game too. He’s obviously got some weapons around him. He makes it go offensively. The challenge is to contain him if you can.”
