Pederson’s ‘energy’ not enough to influence input on roster
PHILADELPHIA>> Doug Pederson hoped to have more input in player personnel decisions following his first year as head coach of the Eagles.
But he’s still out of the loop in the “collaborative” process headed by executive vice president of football operations Howie Roseman, and choreographed by football personnel chief Joe Douglas.
Pederson’s role in personnel basically is to tell Roseman and Douglas what kind of players he needs. Pederson doesn’t strike you as assertive enough to be told, “we heard you the first time, Doug. Now sit down.” Does he?
“Unbelievable guy, unbelievable energy,” Roseman said. “He asks a lot of questions about things that we’re doing and we ask for his input. We funnel down the information for him and his staff. But we need to know what they need. We need to know what it looks like for them at each position. They do a great job giving us that insight, starting with Doug and then funneling down to the rest of his staff.”
The Eagles finished 7-9 this past season, one in which Pederson dealt with injuries, the trade of quarterback Sam Bradford eight days before the opener and the in-season 10-game suspension of right offensive tackle Lane Johnson. The Eagles started 3-0 and finished 4-9.
“You talk about facing adversity,” Roseman said. “The way the players responded, certainly towards the end of the season, you could see how the players felt about him. I’m just looking forward to him getting better and continuing to grow like all of us in our jobs.”
The Eagles responded, if you will, by winning their last two games to halt a disastrous five-game losing streak in which Pederson questioned the effort in a blowout loss to the Bengals.
Roseman’s evaluation of Pederson is based largely on the respect players showed for their head coach and “how much they love playing for him.
“It’s something really promising,” Roseman said. “We are really excited to see what we have in store going forward. He does a great job with our rookie quarterback and the rest of our team, and it’s a tremendous tribute to him and his character for what he went through this year and how the team played for him.”
Rookie quarterback Carson Wentz, who brought stability to the position as he started all 16 games, is a big fan of Pederson and offensive coordinator Frank Reich.
Wentz has a pretty good idea what Pederson was up against game-planning with half a deck this season. Pederson made no excuses. Neither did Wentz.
“I think we can all get better,” Wentz said. “I think we all need to be better in situations. I thought we were a really good football team between the 20s. I think we did some good things. But situational (football) we just need to be better, myself included.”
Though it looked a lot like Pederson changed his starting lineup on the fly during the season, suggesting his decisions may have been influenced, Roseman said “No, that’s a total coach’s decision.”
While Roseman has control over playing time, other than an opinion, he has no influence with the 53-man roster. Douglas most certainly does, according to Roseman.
“He runs the player personnel department and he reports to me and we meet every day, a lot of times a day,” Roseman said. “He’s able to funnel down the information and the thought process that he has with his scouting staff. And our job and really my job is to help make the decisions.”
Can such an operation work? It did with the Baltimore Ravens, who won a Super Bowl.
Then again, Ozzie Newsome, a Pro Football Hall of Fame tight end and one of the best talent evaluators in the business, had the final say, not Roseman, who worked his way up by managing the salary cap.