Doug Pederson accepts Eagles’ coaching offer

According to Les Bowen of the Philadelphia Daily News, the Eagles plan to hire Kansas City Chiefs’ offensive coordinator Doug Pederson as their next coach once the Chiefs are eliminated from the playoffs. They’ll play Saturday at New England. The Eagles did not confirm the report, with a spokesman saying only: “We have concluded our search for a head coach”.

So far, it’s believed that the Eagles haven’t requested permission to interview any coach whose team is still alive in the playoffs other than Pederson.

In this case, some fans have tried to suggest that despite reports that suggested that the Eagles were more interested in Adam Gase, Ben McAdoo and Tom Coughlin than Pederson, the reporters who reported that information were just wrong. The unemployed Jim Schwartz has apparently talked with the Eagles about the team’s defensive coordinator job.

With his 26 years of coaching experience, Kelly emerged as the favorite among candidates including former Raiders, Broncos and Redskins coach Mike Shanahan, Coughlin and former Raiders coach Hue Jackson, who was hired to coach the Cleveland Browns on Wednesday.

They are: special teams coordinator Dave Fipp, running backs coach Duce Staley, both of whom were the first two interviewed for the head coaching job, offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland, and defensive backs coach Cory Undlin. This is a candidate that Andy Reid has actually helped prepare to be a head coach.

Doug Pederson has the obvious connection through Andy Reid and his time in Philadelphia, but the Eagles won’t be able to touch him until after the season. The former University of OR coach was 6-9 in 2015 following two 10-6 seasons, prompting Eagles CEO Jeffrey Lurie to make a change.

Kelly was hired as San Francisco 49ers coach earlier Thursday.

“Safe” is one way to describe the current Eagles coaching search.

He played one season for the Eagles as a quarterback.

Pederson isn’t a popular choice in a city that hasn’t celebrated an National Football League championship since 1960. Many pundits reckon the Philadelphia Eagles have struck gold by hiring Pederson, who has been instrumental in the Chiefs’ success these past few seasons. Lurie has only had three coaches under his ownership of the Eagles. The key to the plan was drafting a franchise quarterback. “He was given the opportunity to start and I watched how he handled Donovan (McNabb)”.

Pederson was a three-year starter for the Golden Eagles before graduating in 1986.

A lot of Pederson’s career as a player was spent backing up Brett Favre in Green Bay. Reid had a very good run with the Eagles, going 130-93-1 over 14 seasons.

Reid is in charge of the Chiefs offense and calls the plays. It’ll be interesting to see where Philly goes at the QB spot with Pederson at the helm.