The Jacksonville Jaguars have found a head coach, hiring Doug Pederson. Pederson is best known for being the Eagles head coach when they won the Super Bowl after the 2017 season, overseeing Carson Wentz's best season. Perhaps the thought is that he'll be able to get the most out of second-year passer Trevor Lawrence.
The timing of the hiring is amusing, given that one of the big stories in the NFL this week is a couple of ex-coaches, Brian Flores and Hue Jackson, charging that their employers in Miami and Cleveland offered financial incentives for losing games. Pederson's last game as head coach in Philadelphia was a Week 17 game a year ago where the Eagles hosted Washington, which needed to win to earn a playoff spot. The game was 17-14 in the fourth quarter when Pederson benched Jalen Hurts in favor of Nate Sudfeld, who proceeded to throw an interception and lose a fumble on his first two series. Washington got into the playoffs, the Eagles got a higher draft pick (which yielded an additional first-rounder after a trade with the Dolphins), and Pederson got roundly criticized (including by his own players) and ultimately fired.
"Pretty simple, the plan this week was to get Nate some time and I felt it was the time to get him in the game," said Pederson afterward. Believe that if you wish.
In any case, he's back as a head coach, although seemingly not Jacksonville's first choice. That was Tampa Bay offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich, but Leftwich didn't want to work with GM Trent Baalke (again, reportedly). Teams aren't beating down Pederson's door for jobs these days, so evidently he's perfectly fine working with a GM who career high point came back in 2012, winning Executive of the Year for his work with the 49ers. Baalke was later fired after clashing with Head Coach Jim Harbaugh and then hiring Chip Kelly, who ran San Francisco into the ground during a 2-14 season. Baalke somehow convinced the Jaguars to hire him in 2020, and he managed not to screw up drafting Trevor Lawrence a year ago.
Pederson is a former NFL quarterback (probably best known as Brett Favre's clipboard-holding backup for a few years) who worked on Andy Reid's coaching staffs with the Eagles and later Kansas City. That helped get him the head coaching job in Philly, but as we've seen with Matt Nagy, running a Reid offense doesn't necessarily mean you're cut out as a head coach. But Pederson's got a Super Bowl ring, and while Frank Reich deserves at least some of the credit, you can't take that away from him.
Jacksonville needs to properly develop Lawrence into one of the game's top quarterbacks, so perhaps hiring a former quarterback with an offensive coaching background will be a plus. Interestingly, though, Pederson's tenure in Philadelphia didn't feature a lot of great passing production. In five years, the Eagles ranked in the top 12 in passing offense just once. That was in 2018, where both Wentz and Nick Foles averaged about 280 passing yards per game, but the team itself went a modest 9-7. Over the course of those seasons, the Eagles had a below-average passing game, on average.
| TEAM PASSING RANKS, 2016-2020 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Team | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | Avg |
| Atlanta | 2 | 9 | 4 | 2 | 5 | 4.4 |
| Tampa Bay | 14 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 4.4 |
| LA Chargers | 9 | 3 | 11 | 6 | 6 | 7 |
| Kansas City | 21 | 7 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 7.2 |
| New Orleans | 1 | 6 | 15 | 7 | 20 | 9.8 |
| Detroit | 12 | 5 | 21 | 8 | 8 | 10.8 |
| New England | 5 | 1 | 9 | 9 | 30 | 10.8 |
| Pittsburgh | 10 | 4 | 2 | 31 | 16 | 12.6 |
| Green Bay | 6 | 23 | 6 | 19 | 11 | 13 |
| LA Rams | 30 | 11 | 5 | 5 | 15 | 13.2 |
| Seattle | 8 | 12 | 25 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
| Las Vegas | 16 | 17 | 18 | 12 | 9 | 14.4 |
| Dallas | 23 | 27 | 20 | 3 | 7 | 16 |
| Minnesota | 17 | 15 | 12 | 24 | 12 | 16 |
| San Francisco | 32 | 8 | 14 | 17 | 10 | 16.2 |
| Houston | 29 | 21 | 16 | 14 | 2 | 16.4 |
| Indianapolis | 4 | 30 | 7 | 30 | 14 | 17 |
| Philadelphia | 24 | 14 | 8 | 16 | 26 | 17.6 |
| NY Giants | 18 | 19 | 9 | 15 | 29 | 18 |
| Arizona | 7 | 12 | 32 | 23 | 18 | 18.4 |
| Carolina | 19 | 28 | 17 | 10 | 16t | 18.5 |
| Washington | 3 | 10 | 29 | 32 | 24 | 19.6 |
| Jacksonville | 20 | 18 | 26 | 18 | 19 | 20.2 |
| Miami | 26 | 16 | 28 | 11 | 21 | 20.4 |
| Cincinnati | 13 | 26 | 24 | 20 | 25 | 21.6 |
| Cleveland | 27 | 22 | 13 | 22 | 27 | 22.2 |
| Chicago | 15 | 32 | 22 | 25 | 22 | 23.2 |
| Denver | 21 | 20 | 19 | 28 | 28 | 23.2 |
| Buffalo | 31 | 31 | 31 | 26 | 3 | 24.4 |
| Baltimore | 11 | 29 | 23 | 29 | 32 | 24.8 |
| Tennessee | 25 | 25 | 30 | 21 | 23 | 24.8 |
| NY Jets | 28 | 24 | 27 | 27 | 31 | 27.4 |
In those same five years, the Eagles had a top-12 rushing offense four times (11th, 3rd, 28th, 11th and 9th). It was the ground game that helped fuel their Super Bowl run, with LeGarrette Blount and Jay Ajayi leading the way. A positive, perhaps, for James Robinson (if healthy) and Travis Etienne. The Jaguars had a bottom-10 passing game last year, but were also ranked only 2 spots higher in rushing. Improvement is needed everywhere.
Arguably there's nowhere to go but up for Jacksonville, so the hire seems fine. With developing Lawrence the most important element to the team's success, hiring a former quarterback and offensive mind is probably the way to go.
Even if the first choice was Leftwich.
--Andy Richardson