Eagles Set to Hire Doug Pederson As Head Coach

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The Eagles are set to hire Doug Pederson as their new head coach, a league source tells Les Bowen of the Philadelphia Inquirer (Twitter link). Jeff McLane of the Philadelphia Inquirer confirms (via Twitter) that Pederson is the Eagles’ man. The Chiefs offensive coordinator remains alive in the postseason, so Philadelphia won’t be able to make the hiring official until after this weekend’s game, at the earliest.Doug Pederson

A former Eagles quarterback, Pederson has only been connected to the Philadelphia job and none of the other NFL head coaching vacancies. In addition to having played for the Eagles, he also coached with the team during Reid’s tenure, serving as an offensive quality control coach in 2009 and 2010, then as the club’s quarterbacks coach in 2011 and 2012.

Pederson, who has been Kansas City’s offensive coordinator since the team hired Reid as its head coach in 2013, was one of six head coaching candidates to interview with the Eagles. Three coaches that were considered to be strong candidates for Philadelphia have since been hired elsewhere or withdrawn from the process — Adam Gase landed with the Dolphins, Ben McAdoo was promoted by the Giants, and Tom Coughlin removed himself from consideration.

In addition to those candidates, the Eagles also interviewed in-house assistants Pat Shurmur and Duce Staley. Shurmur served as the interim head coach after Chip Kelly‘s firing in Week 17, while Staley is Philadelphia’s running backs coach.

McAdoo and Coughlin received plenty of buzz this week for the Eagles’ job, with at least one report suggesting he would have been the choice if he hadn’t withdrawn. However, a weekend report indicated that Pederson initially entered the process as owner Jeffrey Lurie’s favorite among non-head coaches. After McAdoo and Coughlin became unavailable, Adam Schefter of ESPN.com reported that the Eagles had moved on to pursuing Pederson.