Doug Pederson Did It Again!
Well, he did it again. Doug Pederson did it again. He managed to lose the Eagles yet another game they should’ve won, dropping them to 4-4 overall and 0-3 in the division when they should easily be 6-2 and 2-1 if they had a coach capable of understanding simple logic. Crushed Pederson willingly left six points on the board in the second quarter all because he is lost inside his own damn head like a townskid in The Upside Down in Stranger Things. You know he’s in there, somewhere, but no one actually believes you and everything he’s doing breaks all the basic rules of space and time.
His one takeaway – his learning moment – from last week was that he should’ve taken a penalty early in the game and gone for it on fourth and 1 rather than kick a field goal. That was the thing he thought he did wrong. So, this week, he corrected a course that didn’t needed correcting. He stacked another block atop his tower of ineptitude by leaving six points on the board because, dammit, I AM AGGRESSIVE. The problem, Mr. Doug, is that you might be an idiot and no one was complaining that you kicked a field goal on fourth down last week because that was probably the right thing to do. There were… other things. Stranger things.
Doug was at a literal loss for words when trying to describe what that overworked hamster spun up when it told him to go for it, like, every time there was a fourth down:
WHAT?
Worse, he again blamed execution for his coaching failures. Though to be fair, I honestly think Doug is too dumb to realize that he’s throwing his players under the bus when he does this:
How smart do you think he felt when he said elect? He honestly thought that was a Scrabble word.
I watched the condensed version of the game last night so I could make sure I wasn’t missing something in Doug’s thinking. I wasn’t. In fact, it was worse the second time around. Here are a few of the notes I took watching Doug bastardize away another game against a division rival fuck Doug stop doing that!
His playcalling has become so. damn. predictable. Here’s a tip to opposing defensive coordinators– this is what the Eagles will run on each down:
First down: Take a shot because they’re AGGRESSIVE
Second down: Run
Third down: Something ridiculous
Fourth down: Something dumb
That’s how idiots play Madden. That’s how I play Madden. You waste first down because, eh, you got three more! You run it on second because gotta establish the run. You do some bullshit trickery on third down because you think you’re more clever than you are. And then you go for it on fourth down.
Somehow, Doug interpreted the criticism last week that he wasn’t aggressive enough to mean that he has to take deep shots to his shitty wide receivers who couldn’t run a fade route if literally Josh Huff held his gun to their heads and said he wouldn’t shoot them if they ran a successful fade route. Bodies, scattered. Huff, re-signed.
What else? Hey maybe we shouldn’t design routes that are just short of the sticks on third down, ANDY REID.
And then there are the obvious mistakes. Let’s break them down:
Going for it on fourth and 2 in the second quarter
I don’t have much of a problem, in principle, going for it on fourth down in the other team’s end. But typically, these decisions are made when a field goal is not guaranteed. The Eagles were on the 23 yard line, down 11, in the beginning of the second quarter. Take the points. This decision seems worse when you consider that the Eagles, sticking with their ridiculous third down plays, ran a read option – their third of the quarter – on third and 6 with Darren Sproles picking up only a few yards, and what looked to be another one on fourth down, this time with Wentz keeping it and getting completely stuffed in the backfield like a particularly whorish turkey. They needed six yards on two plays and they ran two read options.
Going for it on fourth and 1 later in the second quarter
Again, same logic applies. And again, the decision is made worse by the screen pass – surprise! – on third and 10. Everyone on the planet knew a run to Sproles was coming on fourth down, including the Giants!
Worst series ever
I can’t even begin fathom what Pedershhhh was thinking after two consecutive long completions to Jordan Matthews on first downs – surprise! – with two minutes remaining in the second quarter. The Eagles had the ball on the Giants’ 22, with 1:37 to go, and all three timeouts. They effectively had all the time in the world and could’ve ran a max of eight or nine plays. There was no reason to rush, no reason to force it, and no reason to give the Giants the ball back. So, what did they do? They took three consecutive shots at the end zone– two to Matthews, making him the target four plays in a row, and one to DGB, who exerts about as much effort as a bottom feeder in a moldy tank. And then they got their field goal attempt blocked.
Going for it on fourth and 9 in the fourth quarter
The Eagles took the ball down eight in Giants territory with just over seven minutes to go. After a screen pass and a run (OUT OF THE PISTOL!) with Darren Sproles netted only one yard, Nelson Agholor dropped a catchable third down pass at the sticks. The Eagles had two timeouts remaining (should’ve been three but Doug Pederson blew one on a lousy challenge decision), their defense was playing well, and they could’ve pinned the Giants deep in their own territory. So… they went for it again, this time completing a long pass to Jordan Matthews. Yay. The next three plays yielded no yards and they eventually kicked the field goal, pulling to within five, but now with under four minutes left on the clock.
It’s hard to argue with something that works, but this decision seems wayyyy riskier than punting. Had the Eagles not gotten it, the Giants would’ve have the ball at midfield and needed only around 20 yards to kick a field goal to go up 11. Once again, Doug coached on feel rather than playing the odds. It worked, this time, but lacked any sound reasoning beyond ahhhh I felt like it.
Four straight incompletions to end the game
Useless out of bounds fade(?) to Nelson Agholor.
Incomplete two-yard pass to Darren Sproles.
A screen pass(!) on third and 10 that could’ve been a touchdown and should’ve been an illegal hands to the face penalty but the NFL sucks and oh fuck it let’s just go for the win with an inside-outside fade that Jordan Matthews wasn’t ready for.
Douglas MacShitbrain made THE WRONG CORRECTIONS. Rather than come up with some sort of time and situation cheat sheet to prevent him from ejaculating a game into our faces, he took the criticism last week to mean that he has to be recklessly aggressive at all costs. It cost the Eagles the game.
