The Athletic Article We Read The Cliffs Notes For Exposes More Eagles Dysfunction

Remember the Seinfeld episode when George Costanza was trying to get fired from the Yankees by literally dragging their World Series trophy in the middle of the parking lot?

 

 

Well over the past year the most powerful men in the Philadelphia Eagles organization have been pulling off the equivalent of taking that precious 2017 Vince Lombardi trophy and dragging it around the Lincoln Financial Field parking lot.

Sure, the memories of that Super Bowl run will always endure in Philadelphia. It was that year that the planets finally aligned for the Eagles and their 57 year title drought came to a dramatic end. It answered the long-awaited prayers of Birds fans everywhere and ended the soul-destroying Ringless memes.

But now the legacy of that championship has changed over the past three years. Instead of being the starting point for a long period of sustained success, it briefly masked the flaws of an organization that increased significantly. A great team built with hard work and humility quickly became a less-than-stellar team built from arrogance and incompetence. The heroes who initially got most of the credit for 2017’s success have now been vilified, while the supporting coaches and executives who left like Frank Reich and Joe Douglas are now credited as the real geniuses.

The truth is that the Eagles Super Bowl run was a combination of all those figures working together, but now that magic is gone and who knows when it will be back.

So just when we finally started to forget about the Birds and get distracted by the other Philadelphia professional teams, The Athletic dropped an article describing the behind-the-scenes chaos inside the Eagles organization during the Doug Pederson Era. We obviously know about some of the dysfunction from this past year, but now we know that high-level executives were micromanaging Pederson before and after winning the Super Bowl.

Now I, like most, didn’t read the full article because a subscription to The Athletic is required. I didn’t feel like paying a couple dollars and getting endless emails from the site when I can just get the cliff notes from Twitter and oh boy, it’s a doozy.

If you would like to subscribe and read the full article then here is the link.

And here are a couple of videos and tweets that show some of the highlights:

 

Interesting…

 

There is so much to unpack with the article and it’s stunning reveals. Unbelievably, Pederson might not have been given a chance to complete that legendary 2017 season if the Eagles got off to a slow start. Frank Reich, whose been viewed as the real genius of that offense, was nearly fired by Lurie and Roseman following the 2016 season and Doug had to talk them out of it. And the head coach was still brought in and scrutinized, even after wins. It seems that no Super Bowl winning head coach in NFL history ever got less respect and power in the front office than Pederson.

So if you do happen to read this full article that signifies an organization that’s closer to Houston Texans-level of toxicity than most, it makes the 2017 Eagles winning the Super Bowl under their watch all the wildly more impressive.

By Mike McCarrick | April 13, 2021
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