Nick Piccone
We mentioned yesterday that Ron Jaworski played a role in helping Jeffrey Lurie, Howie Roseman and Tom Donahoe hire a new head coach for the Eagles which turned out to be Doug Pederson. While ESPN ranks Pederson’s hire as the worst in the league, Jaws is head over heels in love with Dougie P, apparently. But there’s an even bigger story behind the Eagles’ coaching search, courtesy of Les Bowen.
Jaworski served as a “special adviser” to the search committee of team chairman Jeffrey Lurie, team president Don Smolenski and vice president Howie Roseman. Jaworski said veteran former NFL general manager Bill Polian also advised, though Polian did not sit in on interviews.
Jaworski, who said he attended the interviews with Adam Gase (now coaching the Dolphins) and Ben McAdoo (promoted to head coach by the Giants), said defensive coaches were on the original list but the candidates who stood out “just seemed to pop up on the offensive side of the football . . . It wasn’t like a plan, ‘Let’s get offensive guys.’ That’s just how it played out.”
Wait, did I just see Bill Polian’s name?
Yep, I did. What’s Polian’s role in all of this? What did he advise? He’s a former NFL general manager with the Bills and Panthers, along with being the president of the Colts when they drafted Peyton Manning, but Polian now sits as an ESPN analyst being the desk. What kind of help could he have provided the search committee? It’s entirely possible this coaching search seemed so off because there were too many people having a say in it. Five people just seems like a lot, and with Howie Roseman in the mix, there’s a great chance that there were various disagreements during this search.
Second of all, it’s funny that Jaws says that the offensive coaches “pop up” during the interview process. After interviewing defensive guys like Lovie Smith, Sean McDermott, Paul Guenther and the like, one would think the Eagles did their due diligence in interviewing candidates on both sides of the ball.
But they didn’t.
What Jaws says might make sense because of all the candidates the team interviewed, 100% of them were offensive coaches. It’s not like they can just go from the offensive line coach to the defensive coordinator after one offseason.
Oh… Juan Castillo. Gotcha. He still sucked.
Jaws continued saying things to Bowen that just don’t make sense on the surface.
The Eagles did a tremendous job – I can’t say that any more emphatically – throughout this process, of putting together a quality list of candidates to be the head coach,” said Jaworski, an ESPN personality who was the Eagles’ quarterback in their first visit to the Super Bowl, 35 years ago.
“We weren’t hiring a line cook at a restaurant here – we were hiring a head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles,” Jaworski said. “The interviews with Adam Gase and Ben McAdoo were eight, nine hours. They were intense . . . everybody was focused, everyone stayed the course. The goal was – this came right from Jeffrey Lurie, when we first got together (on the Saturday after Chip Kelly’s firing) – ‘I don’t care if it’s an offensive guy, a defensive guy, a special-teams guy, I want the best coach for the Philadelphia Eagles’ . . . I think we got the best guy for the Philadelphia Eagles in Doug Pederson.”
Seriously. What is he talking about? The Eagles had a chance to interview defensive coaches and they didn’t. There’s absolutely a bias there to hire an offensive coach, regardless of what anyone involved in the coaching search says. Not hiring Sean McDermott, OK. He was here before and was fired. I get it. But Lovie Smith was fired for a stupid reason. Why wouldn’t you even consider him? He went to a Super Bowl. He’s a highly respected coach in the league. It doesn’t make sense to not bring him in for an interview.
And then Jaws just went all in on the Doug Pederson bandwagon.
Doug has incredible character,” Jaworski said. “I’ve known Doug back from his playing days . . . Certainly, he had a knowledge of Philadelphia.”
Jaworski said he, more than anyone else involved in the process, “wanted a guy that was familiar with the fan base of Philadelphia, that could connect with the fan base of Philadelphia, that understood the history and tradition of the Philadelphia Eagles, and Doug was that guy, in my opinion.
“From a coaching perspective, he’s done it all except be the head coach. But by the way, the Ben McAdoos, the Adam Gases, they weren’t head coaches either.”
All of that bullshit doesn’t matter if the Eagles don’t win. The Eagles could hire Brian Dawkins as head coach, and if he didn’t win, the fans would call for him to be fired. That shouldn’t be a huge consideration when hiring a coach. It never was when they hired Chip Kelly three years ago. It’s not what’s best for the team if the owner is worried about how the coach will interact with fans. He could be the biggest prick in the world, which is what Chip sounded like, but if he won football games, that would not matter.
And even more infuriating, they let the Giants dictate who they eventually hired instead of being able to force the Giants’ hand in hiring Ben McAdoo.
A source close to the situation has said the Eagles were “very interested” in McAdoo, but hadn’t made him an offer by Wednesday, because they knew the Giants might, and there would be no reason for him to leave the place where he had been Coughlin’s offensive coordinator. The Giants’ hiring of McAdoo complicated the idea of Coughlin, who turns 70 in August, putting together a staff, had he been hired by the Eagles. Ultimately, Coughlin withdrew his name from contention Thursday, hours before news leaked that the Eagles had settled on Pederson.
How incredibly stupid is that by this search committe? They didn’t make McAdoo an offer because they knew the Giants might? WHAT EVEN IN THE HELL? That isn’t how this works, right? You don’t not make offers because you think other teams will, do you? Is that how this works? What the shit? I am getting more and more infuriated at how this coaching search was conducted as the days go by. Not even giving McAdoo an offer?
That’s just stupid. Incredibly stupid. And in their minds, there was “never a No. 1 choice,” which pretty much says firing Chip Kelly came with no plan afterwards. If Doug Pederson’s “character” doesn’t translate to Eagles wins, then how embarrassed will we be after this entire fiasco? We’re a laughingstock of the NFL right now, so there better be some kind of miracle awaiting in our future.
Doug pederson was only hired because he is just gonna be a puppet for Roseman and lurie but more for Roseman because it is his team now. The only reason chip got fired was because he would not play paddy cakes with Roseman and Roseman got the whole team to go against chip kelly so kelly was bound to fail in 2015.Lurie is not about winning he’s about money that’s why he runs the team like he does he didn’t like the empty seats because it means loss of revenue. Roseman has lurie in his back pocket. Jaworski should be embarrassed for himself helping these clowns too hire pederson.lurie needed his stadium and the Zombies to fill it. Other than that Jeffy doesn’t care about winning he only cares about $$$. This team is a joke any idiot can see that and jaworski should be embarrassed for getting involved in this pig sty of a team