For the first time since being fired at the end of the 2020 season, former Philadelphia Eagles head coach Doug Pederson was back at Lincoln Financial Field – this time as the head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Pederson and the Jaguars lost to the team he once led to a Super Bowl title. They blew a 14-point first quarter lead in a 29-21 loss.
After the game though, Pederson made it clear that there’s no hard feelings. He said that he was received well by the crowd at Lincoln Financial Field and enjoyed seeing some familiar faces.
“It was great. It was a great crowd,” Pederson said, via ProFootballTalk. “A great welcome. It was good… It was my normal routine, just seeing guys. At the end of the day I have a job to do and get the Jags ready to play. It was good to see a lot of people. When you spend as much time here as we did, do the things we did, it was good to see a lot of people.”
The Eagles hired Doug Pederson as their head coach in 2016 following a successful stint as the Kansas City Chiefs’ offensive coordinator and a highly-touted assistant in Philly before that.
After going 7-9 in his first season, Pederson led the team to a 13-3 record and a stunning Super Bowl win over the defending champion New England Patriots in 2017.
The Eagles would make the playoffs two more times over the next two years before going 4-11-1 in 2020. After that lackluster campaign, Pederson was fired.
He’s landed on his feet though. Pederson has re-energized a Jaguars franchise that was once among the league’s worst and now looks like a totally different team.
All’s well that ends well.