Donnellon: For Eagles, time of possession is back in style

AT THE END of the third quarter Sunday, the second-most important number was this:

Twenty-nine minutes.

That is how long the Philadelphia Eagles' offense had control of the ball. Run the ball into the line. One yard. Two yards. Run the ball around the end. Four, 5, 6 yards. Throw it quick, throw it safe, keep hitting the defense of the Cleveland Browns in the ribs until the head became exposed.

"It felt," tight end Zach Ertz said after the Eagles scored a unanimous decision over the Cleveland Browns, 29-10, at Lincoln Financial Field, "like we were on the field the entire game."

With a rookie quarterback playing in his first game. With a first-year head coach whose hire last January surprised more than a few NFL sages, a head coach who came here with as many questions about the authenticity of his resume as Carson Wentz did.

Was Doug Pederson an offensive coordinator in name only with Andy Reid's Kansas City team, a brief tenure as a high school head coach his only real experience running a team? Was Wentz's success in college the byproduct of lesser competition?

Chip Kelly brought his own set of uncertainties from Oregon with him, not the least of which was his aversion to time-of-possession principles. The plays were the thing, he would say, the speed of their implementation more important than balance or brawn.

"Imposing your will through conditioning was the last version of this offense," Ertz said of his old coach. "This was more of a hit-you-in-the-mouth version.

"Guys love this."

Who doesn't, when it works this well? Even Kelly would appreciate a performance that balanced 37 throws with 34 runs, a scheme that utilized three receivers and two running backs in the first drive alone, a scheme in which five receivers had catches before halftime.

A scheme that, by the end, had at least restored the possibility that both Nelson Agholor and Dorial Green-Beckham were not draft-day reaches.

Agholor ran under a beautifully aired, 35-yard touchdown pass one play after Wentz and Ertz converted a fourth-and-4 under a zero-cover blitz late in the third quarter. It turned a 15-10, mistake-filled lead into a 22-10 spread that calmed nerves throughout Lincoln Financial Field.

"I was pretty excited he had that faith in me," Wentz said of his coach, a sentiment that was echoed throughout the locker room, from Agholor to Green-Beckham to Matthews - who described his new coach as a "blood brother."

"The best thing about coach Pederson is his authenticity," Matthews said. "He's played the game . . . He's been in our shoes. He's played in the city of Philadelphia. Playing in the city of Philadelphia is not like any other sports place . . . He's been in those situations, you know what I'm saying? So when I see him . . . it's like, 'Pops, I got ya.' "

Pops? Good gawd, the man is only 48.

But Pederson has the instant credibility that Kelly so lacked, and never quite earned or received. In so many ways, the start for this new head coach is diametrically opposed to that of the previous one - and his messy ending here as well.

Kelly was as coveted a coaching name as Pederson was not. He was going to radically change how the game of professional football was played. His rollout as a head coach had the nation talking for a week: Twenty-six first-half points in a Monday-night showcase, a breathless pace that left the Washington Redskins defense looking, at least for a while, like triathletes at the end of a humid day.

That second half - when his fast-paced offense misfired and fueled a frantic and nerve-wracking Redskins rally that nearly come all the way back - that was the legacy he left after being fired with a game left last December. And right to the surprisingly bitter end, he held to a belief that the number of plays you ran was more important than the amount of time you stay on the field and keep your own defense off it.

When the half ended Sunday, the Eagles' offense had controlled the ball for just over 18 minutes, yet run only eight more plays than the Browns and were ahead by less than a touchdown. By game's end, the lead had more than tripled and Robert Griffin III had suffered a sprained shoulder in the first game of what he hoped would be a restart to a career derailed by injury and unmet expectations.

Doug Pederson has no such expectations. Even after Sunday's impressive dismantling of a Cleveland team that was listed further down on the food chain than his own, he ended the day as he began it, a rookie coach with a rookie quarterback and a rocky road ahead.

But it was still nice to see those numbers at the end, numbers that at least suggested a better season than any of us have a right to expect. The score, the distribution of stats by a rookie who played, at least for a game, as if he was not one.

Above all, it was nice to see the 39 minutes and 20 seconds his offense kept the ball away from the other team's offense, numbers that make it hard to stage those frantic comebacks that pockmarked the last three seasons.

For all his razzle-dazzle genius, it's a tenet Chip Kelly never seemed to get.

@samdonnellon

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