Asked Thursday night about the team’s search for a coach by local media, an Eagles spokesman said: “We have concluded our search for a head coach”.
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Pederson, now the quarterbacks coach in Kansas City under Andy Reid, is reportedly going to be announced as the Eagles’ new head coach.
Pederson, who turns 48 on January 31, is the first former Eagles player to become the team’s coach since Marion Campbell.
Spending the 1999 season as the Eagles’ quarterback, Pederson was eventually hired as the team’s offensive quality control coordinator in 2009. “It was a great opportunity to see Howie again and Mr. Lurie and … talk with them and sit down with them. The things I’ve learned from Coach Reid wherever, if it’s in my future to become a head coach, then there’s a lot of great examples of him leading a team and an organization that I can use in my future as well”.
Over the summer, BJ Kissel of chiefs.com wrote a profile on Pederson, and it includes the story of when Reid first noticed the potential in his former student.
Gase, the former Bears offensive coordinator who signed with the Dolphins on Saturday, knew he could have had the Eagles’ job, but he has chosen a situation and a quarterback in Ryan Tannehill that he felt made Miami more equipped to win now, two sources familiar with his thinking said.
Kelly was sacked after the 15th game of this season, when the Eagles were 6-9.
But after reading some articles on Pederson, including Kansas City players’ perspective on him, I do feel a bit better about the choice. Your next head coach will be Doug Pederson and his defensive coordinator may very well be Flajole. Lurie has only had three coaches under his ownership of the Eagles. Even though he contributes to the play-calling in Kansas City, those decisions are still primarily Reid’s.
Pederson served as a backup quarterback in the National Football League for 12 years, from 1993 to 2004. The Chiefs haven’t ranked higher than 21st under Pederson, but he has been credited with helping quarterback Alex Smith’s steady improvement in Kansas City.
Pederson will join the Eagles after serving as offensive coordinator for the Chiefs.
“I went up to him after that and put my arm around him and told him it would be all right”, said Rick Brudwick, who is a cousin of Pederson and started his assistant coaching career at Ferndale that same year.
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Nobody else was interested in talking to Pederson, which is unsettling in and of itself, but perhaps more important than any of that is this hire feels like Lurie is simply trying to recapture the golden era that Reid gave him, with nine playoff trips in 14 years. It happened during a game between the Eagles and Packers, after Pederson had left Philly and returned to Green Bay.
