Doug Pederson Is Maybe Too Honest

Doug Pederson has exceeded expectations as Eagles head coach in his first four games. It’s impossible to be disappointed with this team, an unexpectedly 3-1 team that embarrassed the Steelers. But, Doug maybe has a little learning to do when it comes to the media.

Andy was purposefully vague and Chip was actively antagonistic, but Doug has a “hey, what’s up, let’s chat” approach. He just talking about football. For example, today he was asked about the Eagles’ final offensive play yesterday, Carson Wentz’s first career interception. He said something that falls into a nice middle ground between too vague and too open:

That’s true. Wentz probably should have thrown the safer pass to Matthews instead of going for the home run. Follow that up with “he’s a young quarterback, it was his first time in this situation, and we’ll work on it.” Done. Set. Middle ground. But Doug was maybe a bit too honest about Agholor:

Pederson also said Wentz waited too long to throw the bomb and he even evoked the name of former Green Bay quarterback Brett Favre, whom Pederson played behind with the Packers. Favre was known to gamble on plays like that and more than once it backfired on him.

However, Pederson also made it clear that much of the blame should be directed at Agholor, who appeared to lose track of the ball and wasn’t very aggressive going after it.

“From a quarterback’s standpoint, late down the middle is not a good thing. When the ball goes up, it’s our ball or nobody’s ball. That’s our mindset. Nelson had an opportunity to make a play on the ball. It was slightly outside, but on a deep throw typically it’s our ball or nobody’s ball.”

It’s not outrageous, but Doug’s comment gets close to “throwing players under the bus” territory. Like doing that fake push where you just grab someone really hard and they think you’re shoving them in the street. This is probably the sort of thing Andy or Chip would’ve avoided to protect the player.

Last week, G. Cobb, proving that you can’t win in Philly, BROACHED this particular topic:

Wentz should have thrown a different pass, and Agholor should have either caught it or turned into a defensive back and got in Slay’s way. And I do appreciate openness and honesty. But those are things you say to the team and not necessarily the media. Then again, if Pederson’s closed off and snippy like Chip, he’d be crushed for it. He can’t win. But there’s probably a middle ground.