Eagles' personnel unit holds key for Pederson

WE'RE HEARING lots of names mentioned now as part of Doug Pederson's potential Eagles staff - the Daily News' Marcus Hayes is reporting that former Chargers offensive coordinator Frank Reich and current Giants defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo could assume those roles here, and Fox Sports' Alex Marvez said former Eagles safety Tim Hauck will assist Cory Undlin with the defensive backs.

Apparently, Pederson would like to pry former Eagles offensive coordinator (and ex-Vikings head coach) Brad Childress away from Kansas City in some capacity, and he also is keeping open the idea of a job for current offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur - perhaps as quarterbacks coach, with Ryan Day reportedly accompanying Chip Kelly to San Francisco.

Previous reports indicated former Lions head coach Jim Schwartz might be Pederson's DC. All of Kelly's assistants remain under contract, but the ones with close Kelly ties presumably will be allowed to go with him - Day, wideouts coach Bob Bicknell and defensive line coach Jerry Azzinaro, principally.

The coordinator and position-coaching hires will be crucial to Pederson's success; one of the cornerstones of the 14-year Andy Reid era, which Jeffrey Lurie apparently is attempting to recreate, was the amazingly good staff Reid assembled in 1999. Childress, Shurmur, Spagnuolo, Leslie Frazier, Ron Rivera and John Harbaugh all became NFL head coaches, and many fans are familiar with the argument that Reid's late defensive coordinator, Jim Johnson, actually had more to do with Reid's early success than Reid.

In a roundabout way, this brings me to my real point: Hiring Doug Pederson is only a small part of getting the Eagles back on track.

If the personnel side, now apparently once again under the control of Howie Roseman, doesn't perform much, much better than it has over the past five seasons or so, Pederson can be every bit as good as his mentor, and Lurie's favorite coach. But his results will resemble those of late-era Reid, not the guy who went to four NFC Championship Games in a row.

If you aren't consistently drafting good players, you're trying to assimilate high-priced free agents every year. This is not what the best teams do. But it is how the Eagles have built every secondary they've fielded since Lito Sheppard, Sheldon Brown and Brian Dawkins left.

It's where they're headed this offseason to shore up their offensive line, and maybe their receiving corps.

When Lurie introduces Pederson sometime this week - maybe Tuesday - he also needs to clarify why he put Roseman back in charge of finding talent, a year after exiling him to the world of contract details, equipment purchases and trainer oversight. Why not hire and put in charge someone with a proven track record of helping build winning teams? There aren't any personnel people working for, say, the Cardinals, who would like to move up in the world?

Roseman needs to talk, as well, about how he plans to reestablish himself. The whole NFL saw Lurie agree publicly with Kelly that his best chance for success would be to shunt Roseman aside. Then Lurie reversed that decision, not because of anything Roseman did, but because of what Kelly couldn't do.

Over the weekend, our area got an unpleasant reminder that the Reid years, contrary to what Lurie seems to recall, were not all rainbows and unicorns. The Chiefs' season ended very much like Super Bowl XXXIX did, with just about everyone outside the Reid bubble wondering why Kansas City blew more than a minute of time it could have kept in the bank while scoring the first of two touchdowns the Chiefs needed to catch the Patriots.

In terms of predicting anything about the Eagles' Pederson regime, this is probably worthless. Pederson wasn't in control of the late pace, which Reid blamed on trying to make sure he got the right personnel packages on the field for the right plays, while dealing with a fatigued group that ended up playing more than 80 snaps.

What isn't worthless is looking at what actually happened during the golden era of personnel-coaching staff collaboration Lurie harkens to, with his hiring of a Reid disciple who has never worked for any other NFL coach.

I've covered the Eagles since 2002 and what I recall is intrigue and turmoil, pretty much consistently. Reid pushed out Tom Modrak. Tom Heckert was Reid's guy; when Heckert left, Joe Banner maneuvered into a greater personnel role, and arranged one for his protégé, Roseman. Roseman pushed aside Jason Licht, now general manager of the Bucs, after Licht privately disparaged Roseman's "football guy" credentials, people close to the situation have said. Eventually, Banner was cast aside in favor of Roseman.

And when it comes to the organization's "emotional intelligence," and players feeling like part of a family, I distinctly recall 2005 and Terrell Owens, who tried to tear the Eagles' "family" to pieces, and more or less succeeded. There was quite a bit of other contract-related strife, leading to a feeling in the locker room that management didn't value veteran players. Reid was adept at deflecting this blame toward Banner.

What we tend to remember about the end of the Reid era is the cheery farewell Lurie delivered, complete with the commemorative "game ball" presented to Reid for being the franchise's winningest coach. What's also true is that Reid, 12-20 his last two seasons, lost his knack for picking assistants, putting Juan Castillo in charge of his defense, allowing Howard Mudd to coach the offensive line without really coming out of retirement, and forcing Castillo to work around Jim Washburn and the wide-nine. Reid's idea for replacing Harbaugh, one of the best-ever NFL special-teams coordinators, was Rory Segrest. In fact, it was during this dry-well period that Reid gave Pederson his NFL coaching start.

Even the flowery sendoff, which came at least a year too late, didn't stop Reid from subsequently observing that his job became impossible because everybody in the organization wasn't "pulling in the same direction."

That definitely didn't get any better during the Kelly era, a circumstance Lurie blamed on Kelly. We'll see if Pederson working with Roseman and some personnel people yet to be named can change an atmosphere that hasn't been all that healthy in a very long time - much longer than Lurie wants to acknowledge.

bowenl@phillynews.com

On Twitter: @LesBowen

Blog: philly.com/Eaglesblog