Doug Pederson's Selfless Secret

Every year during the leadup to the NFL Draft, my ear is put to the ground, waiting for the first whisper.

To date, it still hasn’t arrived.

In the nearly two decades before Doug Pederson returned to Philadelphia, the Deleware Valley had grown accustomed to head coaches craving power.

"If they want you to cook the dinner, at least they ought to let you shop for some of the groceries,” Hall of Fame coach Bill Parcells once said.

Both Andy Reid and Chip Kelly obviously subscribed to that Parcells sentiment and it can be argued that the constant jockeying for power was the reason for the demise of each coach with the Eagles, although the end of Reid's far longer and more successful tenure with the organization was more nuanced.

The Eagles are now in Year 5 of the Pederson era and there are still no real signs that the coach is going to fall into the same trap which helped doom his mentor and predecessor.

The lastest test to that was owner Jeffrey Lurie essentially forcing Pederson to fire two of his loyal lieutenants - Mike Groh and Carson Walch - after the 2019 season, less than 24 hours after Pederson strongly intimated they would be back.

Since 2016, the offseason in Philadelphia has been dubbed #HowieSzn by many as Eagles general manager Howie Roseman takes the baton from Pederson during talent-acquisition time.

The first “virtual offseason” has only amplified that with Pederson taking a back seat as Roseman handles the heavy lifting of conference calls and Zoom get-togethers with the media, sparking some of the more snarky reporters (OK, me) to joke that Pederson has been furloughed as a non-essential employee during the COVID-19 pandemic.

For context to all of this, we rewind to last summer when Pederson talked about his mentality in a wide-ranging sit-down with reporters.

"Listen, I was hired to be the head football coach, not the general manager," Pederson said. "I was hired to teach football. Howie was hired to do the job that he does."

Once upon a time in the NFL that was the traditional setup where the general manager handles talent acquisition and gives the players he assembles to the coach.

The better personnel evaluators, however, have always provided the types of players that the coach wants and when each is on the same page, special things can happen highlighted by the Eagles' Super Bowl LII win back in February of 2018.

"There has to be great communication and great dialog between those departments - coaching and scouting," said Pederson. "That’s the one thing, when I was (hired) in 2016, (personnel is) not my expertise. I can sit here and watch tape and write a report, and say this guy can do this, this, and this.

"And until we get him in the building and coach him up, you just don’t know. You lean so much on our scouting department."

Almost every coach parrots that viewpoint when first hired but many also get lost in their own egos the minute they see even the slightest vacuum.

The best example locally was Kelly, who also claimed all he wanted to do was coach until the siren's song of power overtook him. More recent coups in New York with the Jets and Houston where GMs lost to coaches are also evidence.

Lurie laid down an edict before Roseman was given back the reins in football operations in 2016 after the failed Kelly experiment, one that stressed collaboration and communication.

"With Howie, that’s probably the biggest thing, communication. It’s been transparent. It’s been open," said Pederson. "... We don’t have to agree on every player, right? But we can have constructive conversations and talk openly about certain guys and how well they can fit our system."

As for fighting for the final say, Pederson continues to keep his ego in check.

"It's pretty amazing when (coaches) fall into that trap," a former league executive told SI.com. "During the most uncertain year you might disagree on maybe three bottom-of-the-roster guys and those kinds of players aren't going to matter when it comes to the bottom line (winning)."

Every coach's shelf life is ever-evolving but for Pederson, the itch of personnel power still hasn't surfaced.

"For me, that’s just not the avenue that I want to go down as a coach," he said. "I’m a part of it. And I want my coaching staff to be a part of it. But I want to coach. I want Howie to bring the players in, and give us the talent that we can go and develop, and win games.”

Some who were weaned on the years of Reid and Kelly, see that as a sign of weakness from Pederson, almost universally dubbed a "good guy" from the players on up the ladder at the NovaCare Complex.

When Pederson first returned and took the back seat to Roseman and later Joe Douglas on draft weekends, one area columnist dubbed him a ficus plant.

Pederson, though, bristles at any intimation of being a road apple as Roseman barrels down his own highway.

“If you’re saying I’m a ‘yes man’, that’s a no,” said the coach. "... as I mentioned before, we can have these conversations (on players) and we can disagree about certain players. Whether I agree with it or not, I still have to coach the team."

Families disagree, but when the door closes and the outside world is let in, unity is the goal.

"Bottom line is we have to walk out of that room united — whatever the arguments are — and agree because once that person becomes a Philadelphia Eagle then it’s my job to coach them,” said Pederson.

The cliche is that vanity is the Devil's favorite sin.

When the ring is slipped on the finger of almost any coach, a more heavy-handed approach usually follows.

With Pederson's Super Bowl success, the first Lombardi Trophy in franchise history and something even Reid, one of the greatest coaches of the generation and a future Hall of Famer, never produced here, Pederson has more than enough gravitas to throw his weight around.

Yet, he hasn't.

Those who know the Eagles coach say staying grounded for Pederson can be traced back to the chip on his shoulder that remains from his genesis as a head coach.

He was the Eagles third or fourth choice back in 2016 depending on who you talk with and was infamously called "the least prepared" head coach in history by former league executive Mike Lombardi.

“I think a lot of times, people’s egos get in the way and they feel like they’ve got to have their hand in everything,” said linebackers coach Ken Flajole. “That’s not Doug. ... His ability to put his ego in his back pocket and put the team ahead of power struggles, or however you want to say it, is probably a pretty good reason why he’s been successful.”

John McMullen covers the Eagles for SI.com and is the NFL Insider for JAKIB Media. You can listen to John every day on SIRIUSXM’s Tony Bruno Show with Harry Mayes, Every Tuesday and Thursday with Eytan Shander on SBNation Radio, and every weekday on ESPN 97.3 in South Jersey. You can reach him at jmcmullen44@gmail.com or on Twitter @JFMcMullen