Philadelphia Eagles coach Doug Pederson was a backup quarterback for the Green Bay Packers from 1996-98 and 2001-04.
During his first stint, Pederson collected a Super Bowl ring for being Brett Favre’s caddie, as the Packers’ No. 3 quarterback. Those Packers’ defenses featured Reggie White and LeRoy Butler, among others. They had a lot of talent.
But Pederson thinks his 2017 Eagles’ team has more talent.
“You’re capable. … I look back at my time in Green Bay as a player when we were making those playoff runs and those Super Bowl runs there, and do we have as much talent on this team than we did then? We probably have more talent, right?” Pederson said.
While we highly doubt that, the Eagles have made efforts to upgrade the talent around quarterback Carson Wentz. They’ve brought in receivers Alshon Jeffery, Torrey Smith and running back LeGarrette Blount.
Pederson also compared his team’s situation to 2011. You may recall that as the year Vince Young declared the Eagles “The Dream Team” after all of their splashy offseason pickups. They finished 8-8.
“But we also had a lot of talent in [2011] here and where did that get us? So there’s got to be a combination of blending all this talent with the coaching staff, with my ideas and philosophy, to bring that all together, put the egos aside, put pride aside, and just go focus on winning this game that we have in front of us. I’m a big believer [that] if you do that, then you look back at the end of the season and you’re probably going to be where you want to be, and that’s playing in the postseason.”
What do we make of all of this? Not much.
Pederson is trying to build up his team, while also giving a nod to chemistry. There’s no way these guys are better than the 1996 Packers.