Ford: Why Andy Reid would not have made this trade
It is an interesting quirk of fate that Doug Pederson begins his tenure as Eagles head coach with the team holding the No. 2 pick in the NFL draft, exactly as was the case when Andy Reid took over 17 years ago.
It is an interesting quirk of fate that Doug Pederson begins his tenure as Eagles head coach with the team holding the No. 2 pick in the NFL draft, exactly as was the case when Andy Reid took over 17 years ago.
The histories of Pederson and Reid have been so intertwined that the obvious comparison as the Eagles prepare to select quarterback Carson Wentz on Thursday is to equate that with Reid's choice of Donovan McNabb in 1999.
Re-creating Reid's tenure here, down to the opening draft pick of that era, isn't the worst thing to do. The man went to the playoffs in nine of his 14 seasons with the Eagles, won 130 regular-season and 10 postseason games, and was overseer of the longest sustained period of success in franchise history. Yes, his resumé had a gaping hole, but it is better than that of any other head coach since Buck Shaw, who has been dead nearly 40 years now.
To emulate what happened under Andy Reid - sustained contention for a championship - is an obvious goal and Pederson seems to possess the right lineage for the job. He impressed Reid when both were in Green Bay, became the placeholder for McNabb in 1999, and, later on, grew into his current role by apprenticing as an assistant and a coordinator for Reid. It is a familiar back-to-the-future story line that, after three years of unpredictable page-turning with Chip Kelly, is like a well-worn bedtime tale, all cozy and comforting.
The only problem with the neat narrative is that what the Eagles did Wednesday is just about the last thing Reid would have done in that situation.
In the same circumstance - sitting with the eighth pick in the draft and with the roster currently in place - Andy Reid would have hunkered down, guarded his future draft picks, and taken the best offensive tackle available. Odds are that would have been Ronnie Stanley of Notre Dame at No. 8, but he would have come away with one of the four tackles with consensus first-round grades, and might even have been able to trade down to get one.
What he would not have done is spend his capital muddying a quarterback situation in which he already had a former Heisman Trophy winner who appears finally healthy and proved as much, despite ridiculous odds against him, in the latter stages of the previous season.
That is far from what greeted Reid when he arrived in Philadelphia. The Eagles had three starters in 1998, which is the same thing as saying they had no starters. Bobby Hoying, Koy Detmer, and Rodney Peete each had at least four starts for the 3-13 team and they combined for a passer rating of 57.7. The team's performance led Jeff Lurie to clean house of Ray Rhodes and his staff, including 35-year-old quarterbacks coach Sean Payton.
The Eagles earned the No. 2 pick in the draft and Reid had no choice - particularly in a draft that saw five quarterbacks chosen among the top 12 selections - except to take a quarterback. His challenge was to pick McNabb and not Tim Couch or Akili Smith, who went No. 1 and No. 3. In that, he succeeded.
Reid is a very practical man, however. Put a 28-year-old Sam Bradford on that roster, a smart study made for a West Coast offense, and Reid would have gone with him. He would have gone with Bradford particularly if he were coming off a season in which he survived despite playing behind a subpar line, with an underachieving running back, and a cast of fumble-fingered receivers, and in a frantic system that didn't take advantage of his strengths as a reader of defenses who adjusts smoothly prior to the snap.
Every comparison limps, especially one being made across nearly two decades, but Reid is a building-block coach. In the 11 drafts after 1999, when the Eagles had a first-round pick with Reid as head coach, they took an offensive or defensive lineman eight times, including seven of the last eight. In 2016, transported across time to become the new head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, a reborn 41-year-old Andy Reid would opt to do that, too.
The real difference between the two coaches - and the widest fork in their narratives - is that Reid held significant roster power for all of his tenure, and Pederson does not appear to be in that same position. Howie Roseman said the Eagles wouldn't have traded away multiple high-round picks to move up to No. 2 had Pederson not given a thumbs-up to the plan. He probably did, but that's not the same thing as coming up with the plan.
In any case, the Eagles have not re-created the opening scene of Reid's career in Philadelphia, even though that is a convenient way to tell it. It didn't cost Reid anything to get the No. 2 pick in the 1999 draft and he was facing a desperate need at quarterback. Neither was the situation here this year.
It might turn out to be a successful story, but don't be fooled into thinking it is one you have heard before. This is a whole new book, and the coach isn't the author.
@bobfordsports