No bad blood between Pederson and Marrone
PHILADELPHIA >> You knew there would be twists and turns when Doug Pederson’s postSuper Bowl book came out. Biographies are like that.
But it was alarming that Pederson, the model of moderation, would criticize a colleague in writing, where the wreckage is forever. Especially after he was trashed for being unqualified before the Eagles’ Super Bowl season began.
Pederson took his cuts in the book anyway, and this weekend he opposes the Jacksonville Jaguars and Doug Marrone, the man he called out in one of those pages, in London.
While Pederson tried to downplay the biography content Wednesday, there was no getting around this drama. You can count on the Brits to run with this very active story line.
The passage where Pederson is blatantly critical of Marrone in “Fearless: How an Underdog Becomes a Champion,” references a Jaguars team leading the New England Patriots, 14-10, with 55 seconds and two timeouts left in the first half of the AFC championship. One more good half and the Jaguars have a shot at the SB title.
Instead of putting his foot on the accelerator, Marrone ordered quarterback Blake Bortles to take a knee. Two knees, in fact. Talk about your premature victory formation.
“I was watching the game from our locker room at Lincoln Financial Field as we were getting ready to play Minnesota,” Pederson wrote. “I sat there thinking, ‘You have got to be kidding me right now.’ They had two timeouts and close to a minute left. They could have at least tried for a field goal … If they lose this game, this is why. Sure enough, they would go on to lose the game. It made me mad because Jacksonville had New England right where they wanted them.
“Inside I was like, I’ll never do that. It fueled me.”
Pederson didn’t back off the words when asked Wednesday if that content would make it awkward facing Marrone this weekend. Pederson made so many faces when his words were read back to him, you knew his answer would be hollow.
“No, I mean, that was a year ago,” Pederson said. “Different team, different set of circumstances. I’ve got a lot of respect for Coach Marrone and what he’s done. He’s got a good football team now. None of that has any impact on what’s going on this week.”
We shall see about the impact because Pederson indicated the matter didn’t come up when he saw Marrone at the coaches’ meetings over the offseason. Think about it. If you’re competitive enough to coach in the NFL and someone accused you of blowing it, even if he was right, are you going to take it lying down?
Good, by the way, is a shameless exaggeration. The Jaguars (3-4) look like anything but a final four team as they’ve been outscored, 57-0, in the first half of their last three games, all losses. The Eagles (3-4) don’t remotely resemble the defending Super Bowl champs.
Marrone said on a conference call he doesn’t know Pederson well enough to have had a conversation with him at the league meetings but that – you’ve got it - he respects his adversary as a coach.
“Whenever you do something and you don’t win a game it opens it up for everything,” Marrone said. “There’s times when I look back and say, hey I could have made better decisions to put our team in a better situation. There’s no doubt about it. So, I don’t have any problems at all. I know he’s a great coach and I’m sure from everything I’ve heard he’s a great guy. So, I’ve had no issues with that.”
Marrone didn’t bring it up but he had to be smiling after watching the replay of the Eagles’ loss last week to the Carolina Panthers.
The Eagles had a 10-0 lead with one minute and two timeouts left in the first half, and a first down at their 11-yard line. On the preceding play Wendell Smallwood’s 51-yard gain on a screen play was erased by a holding penalty on Brandon Brooks.
Instead of throwing down the field to set up a wind-aided field goal, the Eagles checked down to a three-yard pass and followed with a Corey Clement run to kill the rest of the clock. They wound up losing, 21-17, partly because they needed a TD instead of a field goal on their last possession, deep into Panthers territory.
What’s that about being aggressive and I would never do that?
“I think each coach has his own opinion on what they should do,” Marrone said. “And it’s hard to talk about what someone else is doing if you have different tools in the tool box.
“I try not to take a game away by making calls.”
To each Doug, his own.