Philadelphia Eagles: Doug Pederson is crushing 2016 NFL head coaching class

The Philadelphia Eagles hired Doug Pederson as head coach back in 2016.

Two years ago, there were some fans questioning the decision by the Philadelphia Eagles hiring Doug Pederson as their new head coach, mainly because they believed the team would have been better off with some of the other available candidates, one of which happened to be Ben McAdoo, who was fired this season by the New York Giants. With the Eagles on the verge of earning a trip to the Super Bowl for the first time since 2005, it’s safe to say nobody is questioning the decision by the organization any more when looking what Pederson has accomplished with this team in just two seasons.

After winning seven games during his first year as head coach, Pederson and the Eagles were considered a potential sleeper team to keep an eye on in the NFC at the beginning of the season when it came to teams with the potential to make the leap to serious contenders. Not only did Philadelphia shock the NFL world by finishing on top of the NFC East ahead of the Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants, but Pederson’s squad was able to earn the No. 1 seed in the NFC playoff picture, and will host the Minnesota Vikings this Sunday in the NFC Championship Game.

Between losing Jason Peters back at the end of October along with Carson Wentz suffering a torn ACL back in Week 14, Pederson deserves all of the credit in the world for keeping Philadelphia in great shape, despite all of the difficult obstacles faced along the way. And if all of this wasn’t impressive enough, take a look at where Pederson stands compared to the rest of the NFL head coaching class that was hired back in 2016.

Looking at how much Pederson is crushing the rest of his classmates should put a huge smile on the faces of Eagles fans since the chances of this team preparing for the NFC Championship would have been highly unlikely with one of these other coaches. Sure, the argument can be made that Pederson has much better talent to work with over some of these other teams, but as mentioned before, seeing Philadelphia finding ways to compete despite all of their key injuries shows how great of a head coach he truly is.

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Even if the Eagles come up short against the Vikings, at least Pederson has helped this team return to a level that makes it seem like they’re going to be serious contenders in the NFC for years to come. Taking a chance on a coach like Pederson was a huge risk two years ago, but at the end of the day, it seems to have been the best decision Philadelphia as an organization could have made when looking at all of the other bullets they dodged with the rest of the candidates from 2016.