Doug Pederson Out as Eagles Head Coach
Pederson also failed this season to fix Carson Wentz, who played poorly this season. Among all quarterbacks with a minimum of 10 starts this season, Wentz finished in the bottom of the league. (Jeff Fusco/Philadelphia Magazine).
In short- this offseason is a mess.
Article by Dave Nguyen, AKSM Sports
PHILADELPHIA - After a 4-11-1 finish to the 2020-21 NFL Season, the Philadelphia Eagles have parted ways with Doug Pederson. In his five seasons as Head Coach, the former Eagles backup quarterback compiled a 42-37-1 record in the regular season, led the Eagles to two NFC East titles, three playoff appearances, and was the first coach in team history to hoist the Lombardi Trophy in its win over the Patriots in Super Bowl 52.
After the Eagles lost to the Washington Football team in Week 17, Pederson was confident that he would return as the head coach next year. But the way the team performed, particularly on the offensive side of the ball, did not give either owner Jeffrey Lurie a reason to have Pederson return at the helm.
In 2020 the Eagles offense was ranked in the bottom of the league in many statistical categories, including total yards (25th), total yards per game (25th), total passing yards (28th), and 26th in scoring. For someone who prided himself in play calling and had early success in his coaching career, ranking in the bottom of the league in those offensive stats does not give an owner, who wants a high powered offense, any confidence to bring his head coach back.
Pederson also failed this season to fix Carson Wentz, who played poorly this season. Among all quarterbacks with a minimum of 10 starts this season, Wentz finished in the bottom of the league in passing yards, completions, completion percentage, and quarterback rating. On the other hand, Wentz led the league in interceptions (15), sacks (50), was the ninth most hit quarterback this season (51 times), and was pressured the seventh most times (credit Pro-Football reference).
While Carson Wentz did not play well this year, one can't put 100% of the blame on why the Eagles had a losing season in 2020. Part of Wentz' regression this season falls on Pederson.
According to premier NFL analyst Warren Sharp (NBC Sports, The Ringer) who (in my opinion) studies football analytics almost down to a science, there was a key statistic that Carson Wentz excelled at in the 2019-20 season. Sharp stated that in 2019 Carson Wentz had success "shuffling" or moving in and/or outside the pocket- specifically, a 55% success rate when "shuffling", which ranked first among all quarterbacks. The national average of quarterback success rate while "shuffling" in 2019 was 42%, which Wentz eclipsed by +13% with a team that had receivers that the average Eagles fan did not know were on the roster in the last four weeks of the regular season en route to a division title.
What was frustrating to see this season, with this specific metric on how Wentz was successful last season, was why did Doug Pederson not design an offense that catered to this strength of Wentz? An offense designed for him to roll-out or move around in and outside of the pocket? Whether one is a diehard fan, or a local media personality like Anthony Gargano on 97.5 the Fanatic, it was clear as day that the Eagles offense was bad and that Wentz making plays on the move could have resulted in better results for the offense, and (maybe) Wentz would not have been benched for Jalen Hurts.
To support this point, two teams that stood out this season that had an offensive design based on quarterback movement are the Rams and the Browns. If one were to watch the Rams this season, a majority of the plays that Sean McVay ran for Jared Goff had play action, misdirection, rolling to the left or the right, or a combination of these attributes. If an NFL fan was watching the Cleveland Browns this season, Head Coach and Philadelphia native Kevin Stefanski completely changed the way Baker Mayfield has played this season, specifically designing an offense with a success rate by running plays out of play-action, and it was shown in its playoff win against the Steelers. As a result of both teams changing their offensive philosophies this season, both teams made the playoffs and are advancing to the Divisional round this weekend. Would the Eagles have played better on offense if there was a chance in offensive philosophy? Based on this metric, yes. Yet, Pederson was too stubborn to give up play-calling duties a majority of the season.
Another facet that Eagles fans could not comprehend was Pederson's inability to run the ball more throughout the season. In 2020, amongst all rushers, Miles Sanders was seventh overall in yards per carry with 5.3 yards a clip. Eliminate Lamar Jackson and Kyler Murray, judging Sanders amongst all running backs last year, the former Nittany Lion is ranked fifth in yards per carry. Yet, despite finishing with 15th in rushing yards, Sanders only had 164 rushing attempts this season which was 21st in the league. As a result of Pederson's stubbornness to run the ball, the Eagles ranked 23rd in rushing attempts this season with 403. In comparison, of the top 10 teams that led the NFL in rushing attempts this season, five of them made the playoffs.
It is not ALL of Doug Pederson's fault that the Eagles finished with only four wins this season. At one point, due to injuries, the Eagles had 12-13 different offensive line combinations in 16 weeks. The lack of continuity on the offensive line played an impact on the performance of Carson Wentz. While Wentz' performance this year was hundreds of miles away from his 2017 MVP caliber season, it is not solely his fault the Eagles played piss-poor on offense in 2020. The inability to design an offense that catered to one of the strengths of Carson Wentz, the stubbornness to not give up the play-calling duties until the very end of the season, and the failure and stupidity to not run the ball more this season by giving the rock to a back who was in the top five in yards per carry, are some of the many reasons that factored into Doug Pederson's exit as head coach of the Eagles.
But the drama will continue this offseason. Rumors will continue to speculate if Carson Wentz will return to the Eagles, as he was upset that he was benched by Jalen Hurts and his contract situation is mind-boggling. When Hurts took over for Wentz, a topic in the media was whether the Eagles should trade Wentz and name Hurts the starter for the future. What the average fan needs to keep in mind is Wentz' $128 million dollar contract extension kicks in at the start of the new league year. If the Eagles were to trade Wentz before June 1st of this league year, it would be a dead cap hit of roughly $33.8 million. If Wentz were to be traded after June 1st, it would be an estimated $34.6 million dollar hit, and if Wentz is cut his cap-hit is $59.2 million. Any way this situation is sliced, cutting or trading Wentz would be the largest dead-cap hit in NFL History. In comparison, the Rams hold the largest dead cap hit in NFL history with $21.8 million when they traded receiver Brandon Cooks to the Texans. Furthermore, according to Overthecap.com, the Eagles are projected to be roughly $51 million over the salary cap heading into the 2021 season. Along with the Wentz drama, the salary cap issues, an aging roster, the poor draft selections (most notably Arcega-Whiteside instead of DK Metcalf and Jalen Raegor over Justin Jefferson), including only one Pro-Bowl player selected in the last four drafts (which was ironically Wentz), the person responsible for these issues is General Manager Howie Roseman, who has every reason to be relieved of his duties as well.
But it appears that Howie will return next year, as Jeffrey Lurie noted in his virtual press conference on Monday that Roseman will be involved in finding Pederson's replacement. it will be the fourth head coach he, Lurie, and others will be searching for in eight years.
In short- this offseason is a mess.