Doug Pederson is officially out as head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, ending a five-year run that peaked with a victory in Super Bowl LII and ended with a disastrous 4-11-1 record in 2020. His tenure was capped by the humiliation of an overt tank-job in his final game.
Owner Jeffrey Lurie reportedly met with Pederson for a second time Monday in Florida to discuss the coach's future. It appears they both walked away unable to work together, with reports suggesting Pederson was tired of being ordered around by the front office.
MORE EAGLES COVERAGE: Why would any coach sign up to be the next Doug Pederson?
The dysfunction of the Eagles organization could not have been more apparent last season. The roster lacked competitive talent. The wrong players were often on the field. The offensive scheme was an incoherent casualty of injuries that now reliably come in droves every year. The franchise quarterback regressed to an unprecedented degree. Years of poor drafting, salary cap mismanagement and unhealthy internal power dynamics conspired to produce a team that lacked identity, chemistry, direction and organizational trust.
Pederson issued the following statement.
Whether or not Pederson is the man who should have paid the price for those failures will be debated for a long time to come. He certainly didn't put together a convincing case for himself in 2020, yet the question will always remain whether he was hampered by an increasingly active owner and a general manager whose power isn't offset by equal accountability.
After the news broke Monday, Eagles fans, players and NFL observers reacted to the franchise-shifting decision to boot the only man whose resume in Philadelphia includes a Super Bowl title. Here's a sampling of what's been said in the wake of Pederson's dismissal.