The LA Chargers should not hire recently fired head coach, Doug Pederson.
There was another job opening in the NFL on Monday as the Philadelphia Eagles fired Super Bowl-winning head coach, Doug Pederson. Pederson is now the biggest name available outside of Urban Meyer and is someone who the LA Chargers should stay away from hiring.
To be completely clear, it is not an awful thing to bring Pederson in for an interview just to flesh out the entire process and have some sort of a contingency plan. The team is interviewing Jason Garrett, they might as well interview Doug Pederson.
But like Garrett, it would be a mistake if the Bolts hired Pederson to be the next head coach of the LA Chargers. Yes, he is a Super Bowl-winning coach with a 42-37-1 record. Don’t let that convince you that he is an elite head coach option.
First of all, the 2017-18 Philadelphia Eagles are one of the weirdest Super Bowl winners in NFL history. There was no multi-year run of greatness for the Eagles, no build-up that led to the Super Bowl win. Outside of that playoff run with Nick Foles, the Eagles only won one playoff game — the now-infamous double doink.
Pederson had one outlier season of success. And yes, the front office was poor and did not do a great job of building a long-term roster to produce. Yes, they dealt with injuries, but every team deals with injuries. While the Super Bowl is valuable, Pederson has done just about everything to tank his value since then.
His in-game decision-making is questionable at best, something that Charger fans know all too well. Let’s not forget when he challenged a two-yard completion (albeit he won the challenge) early in his coaching tenure, wasting his last timeout of the half to save two yards.
Let’s not forget why the Eagles have the pretty “1” in their record this season. They had a field-goal try at the end of overtime, suffered a delay of game penalty, then suffered another delay of game penalty on the punt and then punted away the win to play for the tie. “Fearless”.
He is an offensive coach who is not that great offensively. The Eagles’ Super Bowl-winning season was the only season that the Eagles had an offense that was above league-average and it is not a coincidence that the offense got worst once Frank Reich got a job in Indianapolis.
The Eagles ranked third in points and seventh in yards in Reich’s last season. Since then, Philly has ranked 18th, 12th and 26th in points and 14th, 14th and 24th in yards. Pro-Football-Reference’s Offensive Simple Rating System (OSRS) is telling about the steps back the offense has taken as well.
OSRS essentially measures an offense compared to league average, which is considered 0.0. In the Super Bowl-winning season, the Eagles’ OSRS was 7.0. In the three years since, the Eagles’ OSRS was 0.0, 0.7 and -2.8.
Ironically enough, the worst season (which was this last season) is the one season in which Pederson decided to not hire an offensive coordinator and call the shots himself. How did that work out?
Some may point out to Carson Wentz’s fast regression, but shouldn’t that concern Charger fans with Justin Herbert? Pederson had an MVP-caliber quarterback that somehow got worse and worse every season without Reich. And while he dealt with injuries, he did not get much help from his head coach.
Now that Pederson is out there is reportedly a much better chance that Wentz stays in Philly. So the head coach had a terrible relationship with the franchise quarterback? That is promising!
I just don’t see the appeal of Doug Pederson. While the Super Bowl is great and the Philly Special will live on as one of the greatest plays of all-time, he just is not the man for the LA Chargers job.
The LA Chargers cannot hire Pederson only looking at something that happened three years ago. Because when you look at the last three years, it is quite obvious that his Super Bowl win is masking an otherwise mediocre offensive head coach.