What if the Philadelphia Eagles were actually correct in firing Doug Pederson?
By David Esser
Coaching staff selection.
This is a bit of a controversial point amongst the Philadelphia Eagles fanbase, as there’s seems to be some level of belief that Pederson was “handcuffed” when it came to selecting his coaching assistants. However, the 2019 season is a pretty decent example of Doug struggling to land the right guys underneath him.
Carson Walch and Mike Groh, two guys who Pederson very publicly vouched for, were objectively bad at their jobs. Walch was the wide receivers coach that year, and he at least played some sort of role in JJ Arcega-Whiteside’s inability to read a playbook. Groh on the other hand was the team’s offensive coordinator, and as previously mentioned the Eagles offense was statistically bad in 2019.
Walch is out of the NFL coaching world as far as I know and Groh had to take an assistant role with Colts last offseason, really speaking to the fact that they weren’t guys Pederson should’ve been investing his time into in the first place.
Press Taylor, a guy who Doug wanted to promote to OC in 2021, is another individual who has seemingly struggled to find his footing at the NFL level. He’s reportedly done a poor job working with Carson Wentz, and there’s zero legitimate proof of him adding anything spectacular to the Eagles offense on a philosophical level.
Throw in the fact that every single one of Pederson’s proposed hires this offseason were internal promotions, and I can see why there was a growing perception of Doug being bad at hiring assistants.