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NFL  |  Mentee passing mentor in Eagles' coaching annals

2/9/2018

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Head coach Doug Pederson, holding the Lombardi Trophy Sunday night after the Eagles' first Super Bowl victory, has given the team's owner, front office, players and fans plenty to smile about already in just two seasons at the helm.
by Jack Kerwin  |  ydkjack1@gmail.com

He’s better, and he’s in a better situation.

Right now, that’s about the extent of it with Doug Pederson when comparisons arise in regard to his former coach, former boss and personal football sensei Andy Reid, who is widely recognized – at least outside of the Philly region – as the Eagles’ greatest head coach.

Frankly, it’s a label Reid still deserves. In 14 years here, he took the team to nine playoff appearances, five NFC title games and one Super Bowl. He won a franchise-record 130 games.

He gave those who bleed Midnight Green an extended period of quality play. Not perfect, not ultimate-prize worthy. But quality, and sometimes even great.

It’s just Pederson is better. Already.

Part of that is the situation he’s in – not having the weight of the entire operation rest on his shoulders, as Reid did.

Of course, that was Reid’s own doing … and, really, that may be the No. 1 thing that allows Pederson to elevate his game to another level.

The guy delegates. He has faith in others. Allows them to shine. Accepts – check that, encourages – their feedback, and then, get this, actually utilizes it.

In short, he ain’t a control freak. Reid was. Maybe not to Chip Kelly extremes, but still …

That being said, can’t take the “greatest” off Big Red yet. Pederson only just completed his second season at the helm, capping it with the Eagles’ first Super Bowl victory … and he didn’t just get it done, he got it done with style, with moxie, with balls.

So many point to that fourth-and-goal at the 1 right before halftime in which Nick Foles and Co. forever imbedded “Philly Special” into Eagles’ – if not NFL – lore by completing an option pass from the backup tight end to the backup quarterback ultimately turned SB 52 MVP as the iconic moment of Pederson’s career.

Claiming that he called the play.

Honestly, he did that one better. He listened to Foles’ suggestion to run it when they met on the sideline, thought for a split second, and then said, “yeah, OK, let’s run it.”

Now that takes some serious cojones – putting that kind of belief in someone else, at such a crucial juncture. Pretty unreal, actually.

Something Reid never would have done. Then again, aside from Pederson, who would have?

Bill Belichick, the supposed all-time standard now for NFL coaches, who happened to be on the opposing sideline at that moment? Doubt it.

Put it this way, the guy has arrived as an elite – albeit different – coach. His positive energy comes through in his players, and allows for fluid communication throughout the whole football operation, making stars out of them, de facto GM Howie Roseman and his assistant coaches.

To be the greatest, yeah, he needs to be around a longer. Even though he’s already trumped Reid in one regard with that title, he still does. Body of work matters for that moniker.

It’s one of the reasons why Reid has stood above Greasy Neale and Buck Shaw, the former leading the Eagles to pre-Super Bowl NFL crowns in 1948 and ’49 and the latter producing one in 1960. Ditto Dick Vermeil, the Godfather of Philly grid coaches to anyone from my generation.

But Pederson, well, it sure looks like he is on his way to being the greatest.
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NFL  |  Looking ahead: Birds repeat, vs. Steelers, Foles MVP again

2/6/2018

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by Jack Kerwin  |  ydkjack1@gmail.com

They’ll be back.

Gut feeling. First thought. Initial reaction. Yeah, they’ll be back.

The New England Patriots? No. Heck, no. The Philadelphia Eagles.

When taking a peak into one’s own prophetic synopsis, that’s what pops up right here.

Yep. Eagles back in the Super Bowl following the 2018 season, set to defend their first NFL title since 1960.
Against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Repeating as champs.

With Nick Foles, again, the MVP.

Hey, just relaying the info, Carson Wentz crusaders. Don’t kill the messenger.

Kidding aside, that is the end-game scenario that plays out right now in the head behind these words.

Frankly, just see the Patriots as done. For real. The dye has been cast by the NFL, it seems, with things going off script for the first time in close to two decades during Sunday night’s stunner in Minneapolis.

Stunner not because of the Eagles winning against New England on the sporting world’s biggest stage, but because of how they won – in Patriots fashion, even getting the benefit of calls. How unbelievably Patriots-like was that?

As for next season, hey, Pittsburgh has more talent up and down its roster anyway, so it’s not exactly a crazy idea to think that it would dethrone Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, if, indeed, they return as a tandem anyway, as AFC champs.

Take away a ridiculous overturn of a Steelers touchdown when the two squads squared off in late December and that tale likely would have been written this time around.

The Eagles? Well, repeating in the NFC may be an adventurous task, especially with Wentz coming back from knee surgery and Foles proving that, despite his detractors and disbelievers, he can perform like a star.

The vibe here is that Wentz won’t be quite the same his first season back. That he’ll need more time to round back into form, and get back to the way he was in becoming the league’s MVP frontrunner before going down in the team’s 13th game.

Enter Foles, due to either physical or performance issues for Wentz, and enjoy another run like the one just completed, Eagles fans.

Dude can play, at a very high level. No, he isn’t Wentz. But he is a better leader than most credit him as being. A better athlete, too.

He also does one thing better than Wentz: Throw the ball.

Better touch. Better accuracy. Better spin in terms of making it more catchable – not that every catchable one he throws results in a catch.

If we’re being honest here, that 28-for-43, 373-yard, 3-TD passing effort wasn’t exactly aided by the greatest display of hands display. Wideout Torrey Smith dropped three balls, tight end Zach Ertz one and Alshon Jeffrey another two, not to mention he somehow turned a 40-yard aerial from Foles, deftly deposited in the receiver’s right arm, into an interception at the New England 2.

Change those things around and Foles, statistically, would have put on a show unmatched by anyone, including Brady.

Don’t see anything less from him the next time around either.


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NFL  |  Collinsworth not my cup of tea, but he wasn't biased at all

2/6/2018

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by Jack Kerwin  |  ydkjack1@gmail.com

Don’t get it. Really don’t.

Oh, totally understand fans’ bias toward their own team, and wanting all things during the course of a football game go that team’s way.

But to proclaim bias on national announcers or analysts, and go all cuckoo with trying to “force” the expulsion of one or more from being able to call a game involving your team, because their straight-edged, honest, unbiased take on what they see doesn’t match your own?

Sorry, don’t get it.

There is bias, but it does not lie within the object of your ire. It lies within you.

Look, no fan of Cris Collinsworth here, so no disclaimer needed. He’s annoying, with an annoying voice and an annoying way of getting across his points. Always has been. Ever since he got on the air following a quality, eight-year career with the Cincinnati Bengals as a wide receiver that ended 30 years ago.

But biased? Sorry. Not buying that premise.

The two incidents that seem to have Eagles supporters in an uproar the most are the ones that basically decided the outcome of Super Bowl 52 on Sunday night.

On the first, rookie running back Corey Clement slipped out of the backfield, ran a post route and hauled in a 22-yard strike from Nick Foles in stride midway through the end zone, appeared to have clear possession of the ball, but then started readjusting the ball, which caused it move as he was stepping on the boundary at the back of the end zone.

On the second, veteran tight end Zach Ertz, lined up wide left of Foles with the Eagles at the New England 12, cut inside and caught the quarterback’s pass in mid-stride at the 6, took another two steps and then leaped for the goal line after contact at the 2, clearing it in the air, before landing and having the ball pop up and him re-catching it.

Both plays were called touchdowns on the field, and both were deemed worthy of video replay. Meaning, in broadcast-ese, both were worthy of an analyst’s scrutiny – which Collinsworth provided.

Going off the NFL rulebook’s clustereff description of what a “catch” is, and how woefully inept officials often have been in grasping that description, he had every reason to question whether either play would be upheld as touchdowns.

Frankly, if anything, he tried to shy away a little from commenting on the Ertz score because he was convinced Clement’s was going to be overturned and then it wasn’t. Announcer Al Michaels was the one who poked and prodded Collinsworth into giving his take … and it was an honest one. Not a biased one.

The reality is, just because you don’t like what the guy has to say, or if you don’t agree with it, that doesn’t mean he is biased.

Collinsworth didn’t show favoritism toward New England any more than he did toward the Eagles throughout the broadcast.

If anything, the rulebook was the real cause of your frustration, and fear, Philly fans. Not the guy trying to explain things through the convoluted parameters it has set up.

So, you can cool it on the call for petition signings out there. My Facebook newsfeed could use the break.
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NFL  |  Ironic twists to Eagles' SB52 win make it even more special

2/5/2018

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Zach Ertz regains control of the ball in the end zone after scoring the game-winning TD Sunday night in Minnesota.
by Jack Kerwin  |  ydkjack1@gmail.com

Love ironies.

Just can’t decipher which one with Super Bowl 52 was more enjoyable for me.

Was it Nick Foles and the Eagles’ offense carrying Philadelphia’s NFL franchise and its long-suffering fan base to a Lombardi Trophy-earning victory after being inundated with insight from all the experts and their millions of minions stating how that would never happen, that it just … was … not … possible – and that the only way for the Birds to prevail was for their defense to play lights out?

Or, was it watching dynastic New England, a five-time champ in the previous 16 years, get a taste of its own medicine in so many ways, from the underdog NFC titlist rallying for the win to its unheralded coach calling a Belichick-type play on fourth-and-goal from the 1 to burn Belichick and Co. late in the second quarter to – gasp and gulp – it actually getting the benefit of the calls at the Patriots’ expense?

My first progression would be to go with the initial choice, but, after careful consideration through the extent of typing two paragraphs, gotta go with the latter. More enjoyable.

Yeah, great, Foles confirmed what yours truly already knew – that he comes up big in big games. As noted here previously, in his nine most important, pressure-packed starts heading into Sunday night, he showed up and shined all nine times. That 28-for-43, 373-yard, 3-TD running, 1-TD receiving effort made him 10-for-10. So, the shock value for me is a little light anyway.

Everything with option No. 2, though … wow, no way.

Never thought the day would come where a team would stand toe to toe with a Brady-led, Belichick-coached Patriots squad, refuse to back down, actually blow a lead and then rebound to win. Same thing with Belichick basically getting “pantsed” by his counterpart in the biggest game of the season as the Eagles’ Doug Pederson returned the favor on an option-pass to his quarterback, only Foles caught his for six while Brady dropped a long-gainer earlier.

Most of all, the two biggest calls of the game – both placed under, uh-oh, “replay review” surveillance – going against the Patriots … are you kidding me? When the hell does that ever happen? Especially when things really matter?

Not for nothing, Midnight Green Nation, but both Corey Clement’s TD and Zach Ertz’s game-winning dive into the end zone were worthy of such scrutiny, if only because of the inane rulebook and the often equally inane interpretation of it. To me, yeah, they were scores.

But they weren’t clean, per se.

Put it this way, in pre-Eagles Are Champions World, those overturns would’ve been automatic “gimmes” to the Patriots’ cause. Not even debatable. Just, hey, if it helps Tom and Bill, it gets done.

But not this time … and, frankly, the fact Malcolm Jenkins didn’t get flagged for a hard hit on Brandin Cooks that sidelined the New England receiver from the second quarter on was amazing as well.
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Ahhh, the irony. How wonderful.
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NFL  |  Truth be told, would love an Eagles win ... for others

2/4/2018

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by Jack Kerwin  |  ydkjack1@gmail.com

Have my memories, my heartaches, my favorite players.

The days of living and dying with the Philadelphia Eagles, their successes and their failures, though, passed for me a long ago.

Life, my life, steered me away from that kind of passion … to the point where, yeah, still love the sport, but “merely” like certain teams.

Put it this way, it doesn’t kill me if one of my teams loses. Even the Eagles.

What does truly affect me is how their performance affects and impacts the lives of others.

So, for me, tonight’s Super Bowl between the Birds and New England … well, not really pulling for a Philly victory in a typical selfish way. My hope is Nick Foles, Doug Pederson and the rest of the guys demolish all those demons in the franchise’s closet, first and foremost, for themselves. But then, along with it, do me “a solid,” with appeasing a special Fab Four of Midnight Green Nation.

Do it for dad, a nephew, a lifelong friend and the most tortured and genuinely loyal Eagles fan in my life no matter how much it has hurt him.

Closing in on his 87th birthday, my dad has enjoyed “championship” history with regard to Philly’s pro football entity that few others have. He was around for NFL titles in 1948, ’49 and ’60, and still talks glowingly about Tommy McDonald, Chuck Bednarik and, in his mind, the greatest Eagles of all, Steve Van Buren, as if their final snaps on the gridiron happened within the last decade.

Like the others, though, he has struggled through some serious hardship in the “Super Bowl era.” It’s been painful to see him endure crap, mediocrity and near-misses mixed in with the 14-year drudgery of Andy Reid proclaiming that he was “taking full responsibility” for whatever wrong happened and then never doing a damn thing to correct it.

Jason, the young pup of the group, is my almost-20 nephew. Doesn’t even live in the U.S., never mind the Philly area, anymore. But he’s into the Birds, big time. In a way yours truly was back in the day … when he was an almost-20. Has resided in Scotland ever since he was a little kid. But the Eagles’ bug infected him years ago, and, thus far, it ain’t leaving. Kid has parties at home – my sister’s house – for games. For the uninformed on time, that means, say, for this one, starting at 6:30 p.m. here, him and his friends are cranking it up there for an 11:30 p.m. kickoff.

Through phone calls, e-mails and what have you, we've
had the checks on Chip, Doug, Carson and you name anyone else the last handful of years. He’s up on it. As much as anyone within driving distance of Lincoln Financial Field is.

Fred, my best friend, well, we got hooked by Dick Vermeil. The guy just oozed hope when he took over a disastrous, charred remains of a dumpster-fire operation in the mid-‘70s and justified those vibes by turning the team into a playoff contender in short order. Spent every weekend of my late grade school/early high school life at Fred’s house, us always hunkering down on Sundays to watch our beloved Birds stoke emotions and loyalties in us that we didn’t even know were possible.

He remains as loyal and invested as ever.

Gordon, a season ticket-holder for generations at this point, is as funny and witty as anyone a person could hope to meet. Can tell you not only the history to every Eagle in uniform tonight, but to anyone who ever wore the midnight or Kelly green in the past four decades and change. Has the same kind of feeling for players we loved, such as Jerry Robinson, and others we didn’t, like Randall Cunningham. A true fan, through and through. Even when he criticizes the team, or a player or a coach, it pains him. Really doesn’t wanna do it. Just gets ticked off, ya know.

He, to me, reps the whole city, the whole region, all of Eagles Nation. They all do.

So, for them, yeah, an Eagles win would be wonderful. They, and so many others not mentioned in this, deserve it.

All the fans do. Everyone in and around Philly does.

Them getting to enjoy it, along with the Eagles themselves, would be as good a memory as can be.

​For me ... selfishly or not.

 ​
An Eagles win would be wonderful. They, and so many others not mentioned in this, deserve it.

All the fans do. Everyone in and around Philly does.

Them getting to enjoy it, along with the Eagles themselves, would be as good a memory as can be.

​For me ... selfishly or not.

Related

Foles has come up big ... a lot
Non-believers keep to selves
Look in the mirror on disrespect
Defense was caving vs. Falcons
Don't understand fear of Foles
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