With five years of coaching salary and a buyout that could land in the range of $10 million, former Eagles coach Doug Pederson may end up with enough money in the bank to not have to ever work again. And maybe he won’t, at least not in the NFL.
Marcus Hayes of the Philadelphia Inquirer looks at whether Pederson will ever return to coaching, given the way things went for him in five years with the Eagles.
Yes, he won a Super Bowl in his second season, the only one in franchise history. As recently explained by TheAthletic.com, however, Pederson was treated “like a baby,” with his decisions second guessed even in victory.
The item from Hayes is labeled an opinion; the only news in the article is that Pederson recently purchased a 38-foot fishing boat with a quartet of 400-hp engines. This suggests that he plans to spend plenty of time with a rod and reel.
Hayes points out that Pederson himself told John Clark of NBC Sports Philadelphia in March that Pederson is "[s]eeing what God has in my future, as far as football goes . . . I enjoyed my time. I’m just hoping that it’s not over. I feel like I still have some good years ahead of me.”
At only 53, he surely does. The question becomes whether he’ll be a fired NFL head coach who gets another chance to be an NFL head coach without having to re-prove himself as a coordinator.
Three seasons as the offensive coordinator in Kansas City set the stage for his head-coaching opportunity in Philly, where he replaced Chip Kelly. Owners who may consider Pederson undoubtedly would explore the circumstances surrounding the stunning disintegration of the Eagles. While Pederson may think he was treated like a baby, others in the organization just as easily could believe he acted like one, refusing to accept what would possibly be characterized as constructive criticism as the Eagles (like every other modern NFL franchise) try to mesh football with analytics.
If Pederson took a standoffish approach to perceived infringement on the turf of the head coach in Philly, maybe he’d do the same thing if given a head-coaching job with another franchise that also engages in active oversight of the position that used to carry a lot more autonomy and discretion.
That’s not an effort to take sides. The Eagles are hardly the only dysfunctional team in the NFL, and they found a way to win a Super Bowl amid whatever level of chaos existed in the organization. Before Pederson would ever have another head-coaching job in the NFL, the team potentially hiring him would have to understand his role, if any, in the mess that was made in Philly in order to project whether he’ll contribute to the making of a new mess with a new team.