Wednesday, January 6, 2021

Newsflash: Doug Pederson lied

There is a story I once heard that I love so much I have never dared to attempt to confirm it.  When Nick Saban was coach of the Miami Dolphins, the coaching job at Alabama became available.  Supposedly someone asked him whether he was going to take the job, and he insisted he would remain the coach at Miami.  A week later, he was the head coach at Alabama.  When asked why he lied, he allegedly replied, “I didn’t lie, I said something that, in retrospect, turned out to be inaccurate.”

Phooey.  Doug Pederson lied.

Often proving someone lied is a complicated undertaking, involving intense research, uncovering sources, and using precise logic to parse what someone said.  What Doug Pederson said was, “I was trying to win the game; and I put my third string quarterback in to play in the fourth quarter of a three-point game because I wanted to give him some snaps.”  Those two statements are prima facia evidence of a lie.

The outrage over Pederson’s statements has been two-fold; some people object to him lying (or at least not putting more effort into lying more credibly), while others are distressed that not trying to win a game hurts the integrity of the game.  Oh, and there are New York Giants fans who are livid that their 6-10 football team was denied a chance to host an NFC playoff game.

The last is easily dismissed; if you want to host a playoff game, then win more than 6 games.  But the first two are worthy of discussion as to whether they are a fundamental breech of protocol in the National Football League.

Coaches lie all the time.  Coaches may say with a straight face that even though the team is 1-6 they expect to make the playoffs.  Coaches may reassure a player that he won’t lose his job because he got injured (I’m sure someone said that to Drew Bledsoe when he was taken out for an injury and replaced by a kid named Tom Brady).  But these are just examples of things that in retrospect turned out to be inaccurate. 

Pederson was NOT playing to win.  What coach, down by three points with a quarter to play, would think of putting in the third string quarterback as a way of increasing his team’s chance of winning, when the first and second string quarterbacks are both healthy?  The lie is so transparent, it becomes an insult.  How stupid do you think we are, to tell us you were trying to win because Nick Sudfeld is a much better QB than Jalen Hurts?  Of course, if Pederson honestly thinks that Nick Sudfeld is a better QB than Jalen Hurts, then it raises a new set of questions about Doug Pederson’s qualifications.

There is some speculation that Pederson was ordered to throw the game by the GM or the team’s owner, in order to get the 6th draft pick instead of the 9th.  If that is true, then Pederson should have said, “The owner told me not to win the game.  If you have any further questions, ask him.” 

Let’s skip over the blatant lying and look at the other source of disgust, the fact that Pederson wasn’t trying to win the game, he was trying to put the Eagles draft pick at #6 instead of #9.   Other teams, like the Steelers who had locked in their playoff slot, rested starters and lost to the Browns.  If they don’t try to win, why should we criticize Doug Pederson for doing what’s in the franchise’s best interest?

But the Steelers weren’t trying to lose, as the closeness of the Brown’s two-point win demonstrates.  They weren’t broken up about losing, but they were playing to win in the context that the week 17 game meant very little, and the first-round playoff game meant a lot.  Pederson pulled the Eagles’ starting QB with 12 minutes to play and down by three, and also didn’t go for a Hail Mary on the last play of the game.  That’s not resting starters, that is sabotaging the outcome.

And his reason wasn’t because Jalen Hurts was injured, or too tired to continue.  He wanted Nick Sudfeld to “get some snaps.”  First, why do you care if your third string QB gets playing time?  Do you really expect him to compete for the starting job next year with Hurts and Wentz?  Second, if you want him to get snaps, why wasn’t he put in at the end of the Cowboys game the week before, when the Eagles were down 30-17 in the 4th quarter, instead of a winnable game when the Eagles were down only by three at the start of the 4th quarter?  Third, why not take Sudfeld out after his interception and lost fumble?  Hadn’t you seen enough at that point to remember why Sudfeld is NOT your starter?

Of course, you might have put Wentz in at that point, but he’d already been scratched despite being perfectly healthy.  He probably needed a game off given how hard he’d been working in his new role as the back-up QB.

And what did Pederson gain by giving Sudfeld “some snaps”?  His credibility is shot, his players have denounced him, and he lost a winnable game.  Was it worth it to give Nick Sudfeld “some snaps”?  I doubt it.  Now we need to wait and see if it lost him his job.  If the owner doesn’t fire him, then maybe we do know where the order to throw the game came from.

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