It was the shot heard around the world. Well, maybe it wasn’t, but it most certainly made some noise around Duval County. The only man living on Planet Earth that can say he led the Philadelphia Eagles to the Super Bowl as their head coach and won it was announced as the Jacksonville Jaguars‘ new leader on Thursday.
Three days later, Doug Pederson, Jags owner Shad Khan, and the team’s general manager Trent Baalke met with members of the Jacksonville media to introduce him. Check out the full presser below.
WATCH LIVE: Doug Pederson addresses media for first time as Jaguars' head coach with Owner Shad Khan and GM Trent Baalke https://t.co/i3pz986Gys
— Jacksonville Jaguars (@Jaguars) February 5, 2022
There’s no nice way to say this. Doug has a ton of work to do, but there are key pieces in place to help him, namely the first-overall selection of the 2021 NFL Draft, quarterback Trevor Lawrence. This is a chance for the former Clemson Tigers star to wipe away the memory of all of the mess that went on this past season.
The Jags have a little cash to spend. They also, as they did a year ago, own the first-overall selection in the NFL Draft. Who would have thought? Jacksonville will be an interesting conversation piece this year, and for one week at least, during 2022’s regular-season campaign, they’ll get a little burn in Philadelphia. Did you hear the news?
Doug Pederson has a revenge game scheduled with the Eagles in 2022.
That’s right folks! The Jags are scheduled to visit Lincoln Financial Field and the Philadelphia Eagles during next year’s regular season.
Sure, we’ll hear the coaches and both organizations talk about how this game is no different than any other. Doug will give us bland answers about how he hasn’t thought about his return and that this is a game between the Eagles and Jaguars, not Doug versus the Eagles’ leadership structure. Let’s be honest though. How can any human in Pederson’s shoes not look at this game as one he’d like to win?
In his five seasons as the Eagles’ head coach, Doug led the Birds to three consecutive playoff appearances, the aforementioned Super Bowl victory, and a 48-41-1 win-loss record. Those numbers include ten postseason games (he was 6-4 in the playoffs).
We know how things ended. We know why they ended. There’s no reason to re-visit any of that here.
They don’t play often, every four years to be exact, but the all-time series between the Eagles and Jags is tied at three wins apiece. The last time these two franchises met, the game was in London. The Eagles were the defending Super Bowl Champions. Philly won by a 24-18 margin on that day, and Doug was on our sideline.
Rubber match, anyone? If we were to go out on a ledge and make guesses, we’d say that Philly, right now, is the better team. Things can change between now and when these teams meet again, but we’re going to guess that Dougie P’s homecoming doubles as a Birds win.
It will, most certainly, be fun to see Coach Pederson though. He still has a lot of fans around these parts, and in all honesty, we can’t say there are any hard feelings. We just hope that he feels the same way.