Philadelphia Eagles: Doug Pederson’s history against Cowboys concerning

Doug Pederson doesn’t exactly have the best track record against the Dallas Cowboys as head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles.

Once a coach gets hired to take over the reins of the Philadelphia Eagles, their job is to get the team to be a consistent winner, but also get enough wins against NFC East opponents on a regular basis, which was part of the mindset behind hiring Doug Pederson in 2016.

In the NFL, one of the greatest rivalries comes from within the NFC East, which is when the Eagles and Dallas Cowboys battle it out twice a year.

Any Eagles coach knows that when it comes to the Cowboys, these contests are considered must-win games by the fan base, and any loss is considered a major disappointment.

The players from this intense NFL East rivalry always seem to get the most attention, but the head coaches are also just as important.

Unfortunately, Pederson has struggled to find the necessary success against the Cowboys over the last four years, and his track record will back this claim up.

In fact, take a look at how Pederson compares to the two previous head coaches in Philadelphia before he came on board, and it’s easy to understand why there’s been some frustration from the fan base in regards to taking on Dallas each year.

Andy Reid

Andy Reid coached the Eagles for 14 seasons (1999-2012), and during that time brought the team a lot of success against the Cowboys, but he also had his share of painful losses.

As NJ.com’s Mark Eckel points out, Reid was 17-12 against the Dallas, and his 17 wins were the most for any Eagles coach in their history.

Also, Eckel mentions how Reid’s first taste of victory as a head coach was defeating the Cowboys, which is an amazing feeling in itself.

Chip Kelly

The Chip Kelly era crashed and burned pretty quickly during his three years as the head coach of the team. Believe or not though, Kelly has a better record against the Cowboys then the present coach Pederson.

Kelly went 3-3 against Dallas during his time at the Eagles.

Doug Pederson

Pederson has held the head coaching gig of the Eagles for four seasons now, but also happens to be someone who spent time in the NFC East as both a player and a coach under Reid.

One would think of all that experience in the NFC East and under Reid would translate to wins against the Cowboys, right?

Well, you would be wrong because out of the three coaches mentioned in this article, Pederson has the worse record against Dallas.

Pederson is 2-5 against the Cowboys and 1-2 at home against them.

Having a 2-5 record against any rival is not good, but the worst part of the stats in the latter part, as Pederson is getting outplayed and outcoached at the Linc, where the Eagles are supposed to have an advantage.

Reuben Frank of NBC Sports Philadelphia does a great job pointing out how Pederson knows his record against the Cowboys is not up to be par with the organization’s expectations, and he clearly needs to do better.

"’Let’s take care of our division.’ You take care of your division, you’re in the postseason. The Cowboys have been a team we’ve struggled with, honestly. It’s something we’ve just got to continue to work and try to overcome. They’ve had our number here recently and then really since my time here in Philly. It’s something that as we look at the tape and how I prepare the football team and get ready to play and all of that, I look at all of that. At the end of the day, we’re focused on this game, and hopefully we can turn things around. We do well with the other teams. It’s just this one team that has our number right now.”"

On Sunday, Pederson can take a step in the right direction if he can coach the Eagles to win over Dallas in what some football fans in general are calling the best game of Sunday.

The Cowboys certainly aren’t going to make it easy since the argument can be made they’re in better shape player wise, minus the recent news surrounding Dak Prescott.

But if the Eagles can find a way to jump out to an early start, and pull off the win to keep their NFC East hopes alive, at least this will be a start in Pederson improving his record against the Cowboys.