More On Near Eagles-McAdoo Union

How close were the Eagles to snatching Ben McAdoo away from the Giants? Peter King provides the details in his Monday Morning Quarterback column:

I think if you follow the logic, it’s quite possible that the speed of the owners’ decision regarding the Los Angeles franchise shift last week played a role in the balance of power of the NFC East. So the NFL scheduled a two-day meeting to determine which team or teams would move to Los Angeles, on Tuesday and Wednesday, in Houston. But the meeting lasted only one day, and the owners, most of them, flew home late Tuesday night. On Wednesday, with one of the six NFL L.A. Committee members, Giants CEO John Mara, back in the office, the Giants could pay full attention to the coaching search.

Mara told GM Jerry Reese to schedule a second interview with offensive coordinator Ben McAdoo for Thursday. Reese called McAdoo, who was in his home office in New Jersey preparing for his second interview on Thursday with the Eagles. You know what second interviews mean—usually but not always they mean a job offer is forthcoming. McAdoo had a strong feeling that was going to be the case. He told Reese he would be in Philadelphia on Thursday morning. Reese then told Mara the news, and Mara said they should move the second interview for McAdoo with the Giants up to Wednesday—like, in a matter of a couple of hours. McAdoo came in, they worked out the deal, and he was the coach of the Giants, not the Eagles.

One more amazing part of this story: I believe the Eagles would ultimately have been fine with either Tom Coughlin or McAdoo as coach, and neither took the job. Coughlin, I’m told, wasn’t enthusiastic about forming a brand new coaching staff at 69 (70 next August) and wasn’t sure how his working relationship with Eagles football czar Howie Roseman would go. So the Eagles chose Andy Reid disciple and former quarterback Doug Pederson.

A couple things here:

One, it stands to reason that the Eagles’ chances of landing McAdoo would have increased if they had moved more quickly. As King notes, it wasn’t until after the owners meetings wrapped that the Giants’ brass put their full attention back on the coaching search. If the Eagles decided to strike during that time (like the Browns did by leaving owner Jimmy Haslam behind to work on Hue Jackson while the rest of the owners were in Houston), perhaps they would have landed their man. Our intel suggests they were locked in on McAdoo as of Wednesday. If he’s your guy, why wait?

The second nugget that stands out is in respect to Coughlin and his reported uncertainty about working with Roseman. Jeff McLane had a similar note in a recent story, saying that “working with Roseman was also believed to be unappealing to [Coughlin].”

Again, none of this has any bearing on how good of a head coach Doug Pederson will be. But it never hurts to know how the Eagles’ actions and front-office structure may have helped shape the course of events.

Pederson press conference

I have confirmed that #eagles will hold News conference on Tuesday to officially announce Doug Pederson as their HC. @FOX29philly

— Howard Eskin (@howardeskin) January 18, 2016