Eagles fire title winner Pederson
Three years after the Eagles won a Super Bowl title, the coach who brought the Lombardi Trophy to Philadelphia is out.
The Eagles fired coach Doug Pederson, they confirmed Jan. 11.
“Coach Pederson and I had the opportunity to sit down and discuss what (our) collective vision would look like moving forward,” Eagles chairman and CEO Jeffrey Lurie said in a statement. “After taking some time to reflect on these conversations, I believe it is in both of our best interests to part ways.
“We all look forward to the day he will be inducted into the Eagles Hall of Fame as a Super Bowl-winning head coach and we are confident he will have success with his next team.”
Pederson’s final season was rocky, a 4-11-1 campaign including the demotion of turnover-prone quarterback Carson Wentz and a highly criticized decision to abandon quarterback Jalen Hurts in the final quarter of the regularseason finale in favor of veteran journeyman Nate Sudfeld.
In five seasons, Pederson went 42-37 (.531) with 2020 marking his second losing season. The Eagles advanced to the playoffs in three of the five seasons – each year from 2017 to 2019 – and won the Super Bowl in the 2017 season.
The separation from Lurie comes on the heels of an ESPN report that the relationship between the coach and Wentz was “fractured beyond repair.” Pederson denied that.
The Eagles were 26th in scoring at 20.9 points per game and 28th in passing averaging 207.9 yards in 2020.