January 04, 2018
During the 2015 playoffs, Doug Pederson interviewed with the Philadelphia Eagles while he was still the offensive coordinator for the Kansas City Chiefs, who had not yet been eliminated. As such, he knows the challenges of interviewing with another team for a head coaching position while trying to not allow it to affect the task at hand.
According to multiple media outlets, defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz will reportedly be interviewing with the New York Giants, while the Arizona Cardinals and Chicago Bears made formal requests to interview quarterbacks coach John DeFilippo for their openings.
While appearing on 94.1 WIP earlier this week, Pederson was asked by Angelo Cataldi if those interviews can be a distraction.
"It’s not a distraction necessarily for the team, and here’s why," Pederson explained. "We have a bye this week. We’re off, so this is the week that if given, my assistants can interview. Now from an individual standpoint, it can be a little bit of a distraction, having to prepare, having to line up your interview, having to really put your best foot forward. And so that can be a little bit of a distraction for the individual.
"But I went through it a couple of years ago. I didn’t have the luxury of a bye. We actually played in the wild-card round, so a lot of my prep had to be on my own, obviously not in the building, not on office hour time, so to speak. You had to make sure you were doing all your prep work on your own and getting ready for an interview."
Head coaching interviews tend to be extraordinarily thorough, taking over seven or eight hours. Even if you're a head coaching candidate on a team still participating in the playoffs, and you can fit that kind of time into your schedule, certainly, it can be fatiguing to the individual.
Earning a first-round bye not only allowed the Eagles to rest up and sit back while four NFC teams duked it out in the wild-card round, it also alleviated the potential for a significant distraction during a short week of preparation for their next opponent.
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