Seth Vigdor
We told you yesterday that Howard Eskin was on Angelo Cataldi’s morning show on WIP and how he believes Tom Coughlin will be the next head coach of the Eagles for a multitude of reasons. Among those reasons is because Coughlin isn’t looking for full personnel control and just wants to coach football.
That must sound appealing to Eagles’ owner Jeffrey Lurie after having to deal with the Chip Kelly disaster. Here’s what Eskin had to to say, courtesy of CBS Philly:
Listening to Howard, it sounds like Coughlin is a no-brainer for the Birds.
However, ESPN’s Phil Sheridan seems to think that Doug Pederson is the front runner for the Eagles’ coaching gig. Sheridan broke down both candidates and here’s his take on things, starting with Tom Coughlin.
Yes, Coughlin had a losing record in each of his last three seasons with the Giants. Yes, a few flagrant in-game miscues cost the Giants wins in 2015. All of that is true. But there aren’t many opportunities to hire a two-time Super Bowl winner as your head coach. Coughlin is like the anti-Reid in that sense: He seldom reached double-digit wins in his 12 years with the Giants, but he got to two Super Bowls and found a way to win them. Reid was good for 10 to 12 wins almost every year. He went to five NFC Championship Games and lost four of them. When he got to a Super Bowl, he lost to the team Coughlin beat twice for the title. The down side: No head coach has ever won a Super Bowl with one team and then gone on to win a Super Bowl with a second team. That’s what Coughlin would be seeking to do. More immediately, though, Coughlin is already talking to the San Francisco 49ers. So it’s not out of the question that he has a new contract before Lurie gets home from Houston.”
Yikes. Sheridan continued on with his thoughts on Doug Pederson.
Because the Chiefs had a playoff game Saturday, the Eagles couldn’t interview Pederson until Sunday. Their interviews last week with Pat Shurmur, Adam Gase and Ben McAdoo could have been a way to fill in the time until they could talk to Pederson — while also providing potential backup candidates.If hiring Pederson looks like a leap of faith, remember that Lurie once made a similar leap of faith by hiring the Green Bay Packers’ quarterbacks coach. Andy Reid took Lurie’s team to a Super Bowl and coached for 14 mostly successful years.As a quarterback, Pederson followed Reid from Green Bay to Philadelphia. As a coach, he followed Reid from Philadelphia to Kansas City. Lurie appears to be clearing out the Kelly era with a return to the Reid model. Pederson would be a pretty comfortable fit.The down side: Until someone is a head coach, there’s no way to know how effective he will be. That’s as true for Pederson as it is for McAdoo or Gase or Guenther. Lurie would be rolling the dice on any of them, but at least Pederson represents familiar dice.”
So which one will be right in the end? Only time will tell. If I had to make a wager, I’d put my money on Pederson. After gambling on Chip Kelly, there’s no doubt in my mind that the Eagles will go conservative with Pederson. After all, Pederson is an Andy Reid guy and despite not coaching the Eagles any longer, Jeffrey Lurie still seems to value the opinions of Andy Reid.