McCaffery: Birds at their best when they take a gamble
PHILADELPHIA >> Inside the Linc, on display for the tens of thousands heading into every Eagles game, nine feet high, sturdy and unbending, there has been a statue. The most important play in modern franchise history deserved nothing less.
Nicely presented in bronze, it captures Doug Pederson during an ingame discussion with Nick Foles. At the bottom, an inscription reads, “Do you want Philly Philly?”
The answer at that moment was, yes.
The answer for all time should be the same.
Philly Philly, also known as Philly Special, would unfold to historic success late in the second quarter of Super Bowl LII, a game the Eagles would win by one possession. Successfully executed by Corey Clement, Trey Burton and Foles, the three-ply trickery would stun the New England Patriots when the quarterback/would-be receiver rolled unescorted into the end zone to catch a pass destined for sports immortality.
It was a gimmick, a nose-thumb at conventional play-calling. But mostly, it was all Doug Pederson, the coach with a gambler’s instinct to take chances. Already having failed with every other kind of coach, from the work-all-night dedication of Dick Vermeil, to the tough-talking Buddy Ryan, to Chip Kelly, who’d tried to reinvent the sport, the Eagles would not win their first Super Bowl until they had a coach unafraid to test the odds of failure.
That would be Pederson. That would be a coach who would rather take a shot at extending a drive on fourth-and-medium instead of surrendering a possession with a punt. And that would be a coach willing to try a fake field goal the other day in Minnesota.
“It didn’t work,” Pederson would say, a day later. “Bottom line, it didn’t work. Great play by the Vikings.”
Not enough worked for the Eagles, which is why they lost, 38-20, on the very field where the Philly Special once worked so well. But the idea to allow kicker Jake Elliott to throw a short pass in the direction of Dallas Goedert with
20 seconds left in the half was high on the day’s list of malfunctions. An overwhelmed Elliott would flip the ball only into the hands of Vikings defensive end Everson Griffen. With that, the Eagles would trail, 2410, at the half instead of
24-13 with a simple 38-yard field goal.
But as if being down by
14 or being down by 11 in that spot was an affront to all football arithmetic, Pederson was fairly badgered about his decision at his day-after news briefing at the NewsControl Compound. At one point, two reporters even yapped at him at the same time about what would have happened even had Goedert caught the ball with the Eagles out of timeouts.
“Based on what we have seen on film and we’d seen on the previous field goal attempt,” Pederson said, “you want get the first down there and get out of bounds.”
In an era when coaches, managers, general managers, fans and media types all rush to either support sports decisions based on analytics or those based on feel, Pederson’s call was a bit of both. His data led him to believe that the Eagles could step out of bounds with about 20 seconds left and, at that point, take a couple of shots at the end zone in an effort to trim a deficit to a touchdown. Given that they would also take possession to start the second half, there was the possibility of erasing a 14-point deficit before the Vikings even touched the ball.
His gut said the same. “You have plenty of time,” Pederson said. “That’s a trigger situation for us and you have at least two more shots to the end zone.” Smiling, he added, “I’m glad we’re talking about a fake field goal today.”
Yet that was how Pederson’s day went Monday, when he was made to answer why he’d told Angelo Cataldi on the radio that morning that his team would win its next game, Sunday in Dallas.
“That shows confidence in our football team and I promise you (Dallas coach) Jason Garrett is going to say the same thing with his team,” Pederson said. “I’m not going to stand up here and go on record and say, ‘We’re going to go down there and try to win a game. Man, hopefully we can go win this one.’ It just doesn’t show confidence and I want to show confidence in our players.”
Of course, Pederson thinks the Eagles will win their next game, just as he was convinced that in football’s most watched game that he could allow an 11thstring tight end throw a touchdown pass to a No. 2 quarterback.
But his Eagles are 3-3 when they were expected (and expecting) to be so much more. So, there must be questions. One that keeps rising is why the Eagles have been so challenged to score early in games. Fair question, as Brett Brown would say. But Pederson has an answer: He is going to start opting for possession to begin the game instead of deferring that option until the third quarter.
“I think it might behoove us take the ball, and to put our offense out there and try to generate points early in the game and not fall behind,” he said. “I think that’s all part of trying to start fast.”
It’s not the traditional approach.
He’s not the traditional coach.
So, do you, as that inscription reads, want Philly Philly?
The answer should be easy: Set it in stone. Or better yet, bronze.
To contact Jack McCaffery, email him at jmccaffery@21stcenturymedia.com; follow him on Twitter @ JackMcCaffery