Smallwood: Pederson debut should quell skeptics' fears

CONSIDERING the carryover effect from the Eagles' season-opening victory over the Cleveland Browns on Sunday, few people likely noticed that rookie coach Doug Pederson began his first real day-after news conference the same way his old boss, Andy Reid, began each one of his for more than a decade in Philadelphia: with an injury update.

The first thing Pederson did after stepping to the podium at the NovaCare Center was talk about the health of his team, including the fact that tight end Zach Ertz and cornerback Leodis McKelvin were "day-to-day" after getting hurt Sunday.

Other than that, looking back at Pederson's first real game as a NFL head coach did not show a lot of tangible evidence that he is some kind of Mini-Me of Reid.

Let's be honest about this: Right behind how quarterback Carson Wentz fared in his NFL debut, a lot of Eagles fans were looking to see how Pederson did in his first game as an NFL head coach.

And if we're going to be even more honest, a lot of Eagle Nation wanted to see how much Pederson coached like Reid.

Had Pederson made some egregious gaffes, he would not have been given the same amount of grace Wentz would haven been given, had he messed up.

A bad performance from Wentz, which obviously did not happen, simply would have been viewed as a rookie QB struggling in his first NFL start.

There would have been no Chicken Little reaction at Lincoln Financial Field about the sky collapsing on all hope for Wentz being the franchise quarterback.

I'm confident that a bad performance by Pederson would have elicited exactly that kind of reaction.

Had he burned a few timeouts unnecessarily or mismanaged the clock or one time said, "I needed to put the players in a better position," this city would likely be a boiling cauldron of negativity - especially if Pederson had made an error that cost the Eagles the game.

That's how closely Pederson is associated with Reid in this town.

A lot of people thought team owner Jeffrey Lurie was reaching back too far for past glory when he hired Pederson, who was the offensive coordinator for Reid with the Kansas City Chiefs.

Pederson also was the veteran quarterback Reid brought with him from Green Bay when he took over as head coach of the Eagles in 1999.

After Pederson retired from playing and did a four-year gig as a high school coach in Louisiana, Reid gave him his first NFL coaching job in 2009 as the Eagles' offensive quality control coach.

For many Eagles fans, Pederson's connections to Reid were too strong to overlook.

Though Reid produced a lot of victories and NFC East titles for the Eagles, his time had run its course in Philadelphia after 14 seasons.

By the time it was done, Eagles fans had no faith left that Reid could ever deliver the only thing this city wants: a Super Bowl championship.

Eagles fans were not looking forward to an edition of Reid 2.0.

But, as much as Pederson preached that he was his own coach, the skepticism was there.

Now, though, fans who are feeling good about Wentz's debut performance should be equally excited about Pederson's.

If the one-game conclusion is that the Eagles might have found the right quarterback, then an equal argument based on limited data can be made that they might have found the right coach.

All the good things you can say about Wentz in the context of being a quarterback, you transfer to Pederson in the context of being a head coach.

Of course, Wentz, who passed for 278 yards with two touchdowns and a quarterback rating of 101.0, was not perfect. But whatever mistakes he made were far outweighed by the good things he did.

The same applies to Pederson. It's hard to imagine a coach having a much better debut.

He looked like a legitimate NFL coach, one who was confident in what he was doing and in control of the game plan he was running.

Pederson was intelligently aggressive and intuitive. He coached with both his head and his instincts while coaching a nearly flawless game.

"It felt good," he said Monday. "I felt comfortable with what we were doing, the information I was receiving from the coaches upstairs and what we were seeing on the sidelines.

"Yeah, I had internal butterflies like probably every coach and player in the National Football League has on any given game.

"Then you kind of settle into the game. You start showing emotion, because you are so close on a few plays. But from my standpoint, I was pretty calm."

Much of the praise for Wentz was for the poise, confidence and command he displayed in his first NFL game.

Those are the same accolades that can be heaped on Pederson.

Sure, it was only one game and what happens next Monday night in Chicago is now more important than what happened against Cleveland.

Still, for at least that first game, Eagles fans can feel good about both the quarterback and coach who are taking them into the future.

@SmallTerp