As I watched the Kansas City Chiefs piss away a playoff game the other night against the New England Patriots because the massively overrated Andy Reid still can’t figure out the two-minute drill, I was wondering what in the world Doug Pederson, Reid’s offensive coordinator, was doing?
By Theodore N. Beitchman
So, now we are left to wait for woeful Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie to make the official announcement:
He has settled for Doug Pederson as the Birds next coach, replacing Chip Kelly, who was fired on Dec. 29.
In so doing, Lurie will be following in a long tradition of Philly sports teams:
Settling for second- or third-best because (fill in the blank) is a Philly guy, or he knows the organization, or he knows the market!
Every team has pulled this idiotic wool over our eyes.
The Phillies elevated Ruben Amaro Jr., a Phillies lifer whose dad played for the star-crossed 1964 team, to general manager and kept him until it was way too late.
The Flyers have seemed to exist as a jobs program for anyone who has ever worn the orange and black. Does Paul Holmgren ring a bell?
The Sixers gave us GM Ed Stefanski, who had the terrible judgment to draft loser and whiner Evan Turner back in 2010 when DeMarcus Cousins was still on the board!
The Phils have gotten out of the “hometown habit” by hiring Andy MacPhail and Matt Klentak; the Flyers actually went outside the box to get Dave Hakstol, who had never coached in the NHL; and the Sixers got Sam Hinkie, Brett Brown, Jerry Colangelo and Mike D’Antoni, none of whom had ever worked in Philly before.
I understand Lurie’s desire to find someone he is comfortable with. That’s human nature.
But in never even interviewing Hue Jackson, calling Ben McAdoo when it was too late and asking Ron Jaworski to sit in on the coaching search, Lurie has fallen into a trap that will surely fail.
Pederson may turn out to be a great coach and an inspired hire. I certainly hope so.
But, as I watched the Kansas City Chiefs piss away a playoff game the other night against the New England Patriots because the massively overrated Andy Reid still can’t figure out the two-minute drill, I was wondering what in the world Doug Pederson, Reid’s offensive coordinator, was doing?
We’ll never know for sure.
But in settling for Pederson, Lurie is in the great tradition of Philly sports.
