Pederson being pushed to the fringes

PHILADELPHIA >> The Eagles’ marginalization of their head coach, a subtle endeavor through most of the offseason, became a blast of brilliance over the weekend in a series of oneact plays.

Shielded from the masses since the end of another disappointing season, there was Doug Pederson during the NFL Draft, standing off to the side of press conferences as Howie Roseman and Joe Douglas recited the expected best-player-on-the-board scripts. Though technically available for questioning, that wasn’t encouraged. Rather, Pederson was hustled to the podium, then hustled back off, a prop not unlike the larger-thanlife portrait of Tommy McDonald on the NewsControl Compound wall.

By Friday, when the Eagles would formally present firstround draft choice Derek Barnett to the press, Pederson just stood there, then sprinted out of the room before he was able to be approached. By nightfall, after the Eagles had used a second-round draft choice on a cornerback who can’t walk because he recently tore his achilles, Roseman made it clear: Doug Pederson is not going to have any say about when Sidney Jones will be put into a football lineup.

“There will be no rushing back from this,” Roseman said. “We will do whatever is in the best interest of getting him 100 percent and being able to help this team going forward, whatever the timetable is for that. We

will defer to the doctors for that. That will not be any of our decisions.” Got that, Pederson? Got it? Now remember it. Doctors, not football coaches, will decide when the second-round draft pick will play. If he doesn’t play all year, and if there is another last-place finish, and if somebody else is coaching next season, that’s tough luck for you, pal.

Of course, times have changed. But whatever happened to Buddy Ryan snarling at Jerome Brown, who seemed to be taking too long to recover from injury, “you can’t make the club sitting in the tub?” It’s even difficult to envision Andy Reid being made to bobble-head away a curious decision to invest a high second-round choice on a player certain to miss training camp.

The 76ers do it all the time. Five years – five of ‘em, and counting – they have allowed a premium talent to sit out an entire season with injuries that should not take that long to heal. The Eagles are hinting that Jones can play this season. But with no summer workout routine or training camp or preseason activity, can he really make a difference?

The Eagles believe Jones will be an NFL star. Some day. But it won’t be this season, and because it won’t, that will compromise his 2018 readiness, too. If Pederson is still below .500 by then, it will be time for Jeffrey Lurie to roll into that same auditorium and promise not to be “risk-adverse” as he begins the search for another coach.

Nothing the Eagles did in the meaningful portion of the draft – that would be Thursday and Friday, with Saturday just the NFL showing off – was to be of an immediate benefit to Pederson, not even the first-round choice, No. 14 overall, Derek Barnett. After discounting him because he “is 20 years old,” because he had a flu at some tryout bazaar and because he had an injured hamstring, Roseman touted the Tennessee product for the depth it provides along the defensive line. Then – wait for it – the Birds’ football-operations boss said it: “We stay true to the process on this.”

Considering the amount of colleges that field football teams, and the number of players on each, and that they really needed to support Carson Wentz with more weapons, and that their head coach is a former quarterback and a play-caller, it’s borderline mystical how the Eagles could have used their first-round pick on a defensive player who may not start and who has had a hamstring issue, then spend their second-round pick on a cornerback on crutches. By the time the Birds got around to the third round, they again had to go defense, taking cornerback Rasul Douglas, because their first two picks were wrapped in ace bandages and questions. The weekend bordered on comical when, for one moment, Pederson was being cornered into admitting that he was surprised that so many offensive players were selected before the Eagles had a chance to take Barnett. And why was it, anyway, that they weren’t more prepared to make a move up before all the top playmakers were gone? But, darn it, the Eagles would shove him to the side again, before that topic rolled out of control.

Pederson has been refreshing for his honesty, for his courage to try fourth-down plays, for the way he treats fans with respect, not with the dismissive arrogance of the previous 17 years’ worth of coaches. But he’s just an employee, a guy to stand there and nod whenever Howie Roseman and Joe Douglas set him straight.

“We wanted to stick to our board and take the highest-rated guys that Joe and our staff have put together,” Roseman said of Barnett. “He fits our scheme. He fits the culture we’re trying to build.”

So they brought out the phrase “process,” then they added “culture.” Two-for-two. And in 2017, that’s how to keep a sports press-conference score. As for worrying about how to keep 16 football scores, that’s the head coach’s problem, emphasis on problem. And that would be him, old what’s-his-face, over there.