New Eagles coach Doug Pederson is going to be fun to draw

As a cartoonist, I lamented the loss of Andy Reid, easily my favorite cartooning target. But luckily, the Eagles replaced him with Barney Rubble look-alike Chip Kelly, keeping my pencil busy these last three years.

Then, just as I reached a certain level of satisfaction with my shrinking Kelly caricature, owner Jeff Lurie dismissed him before the season was even over, saying the team was eager to get a head start on its coaching search.

I'm going to miss Kelly, but I suspect Doug Pederson, soon to be the team's new head coach, is going to be fun to draw.

The first thing you notice about Pederson's face is that he has a jaw that puts Jay Leno to shame. His small, sunken eyes hide in the shade of his furrowed brow, which helps to drive home the "yes man" perception that he doesn't bring much mental might to the position.

All of that is placed atop a beefy neck, a dramatic deviation from the robust double-chins of both Reid and Kelly. It's an interesting contradiction I can't wait to exploit in my cartoons - an imposing body type on a certainly unimposing personality.

There seems to be a lot of backlash against his hire, with criticism ranging from lazy to uninspired. Even before the team was even allowed to announce Pederson's hiring, Daily News columnist Paul Domowitch was already urging fans to give Pederson a chance. ESPN's Bill Barnwell joked about that impatience on Twitter:

It's impossible to predict what will happen, so it's hard to say how my caricature of Pederson will develop along with this tenure. Kelly got progressively smaller the more and more I drew him, which aligned with my growing displeasure with his performance as both coach and general manager.

Here are some other cartoons I've drawn about the Eagles coaching search:

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Rob Tornoe is the sports cartoonist for the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philly.com. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

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