Doug Pederson says Eagles have stopped interviews, working toward decision on new coach

The Eagles coaching search took a hit when Adam Gase was officially hired by the Miami Dolphins on Saturday, removing one of their top candidates from the list.

The Eagles rounded out a series of interviews by meeting with Doug Pederson on Sunday and Tom Coughlin on Monday.

And that's it?

The Eagles current list of interview candidates sits at five: Coughlin, Pederson, Ben McAdoo, Pat Shurmur and Duce Staley. And that's where it will sit for the time being.

According to Jeff McLane of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Pederson confirmed his interview with the Eagles went well and noted that interviews have halted.

"It went great. It was a great opportunity to see Howie again and Mr. Lurie," Pederson said. "They have stopped all their interviews and now it’s just a matter of them getting together collectively and making a decision."

After losing out on Gase to a better situation in Miami, the Eagles are forced to pick up the pieces by looking exclusively at candidates that have no competition.

Shurmur and Pederson have done no other interviews. The job is theirs if offered. Pederson can't accept until the Chiefs are eliminated from the playoffs.

Coughlin is an interesting interview, given he's 69 years old and coming off a 12-season tenure in the NFC East.

And then there's McAdoo, who learned under Coughlin, who is both the darkhorse candidate and gets the "sense" that he is among the front-runners according to ESPN's Adam Schefter.

Take that for what you will. With only five candidates on the board to begin with, they could all be front runners.

That said, this does seem to circle back to Pederson and McAdoo. Pederson has been on the radar for weeks, and the only delay in the hiring process at this point could be that Pederson still has to finish out the season with the Chiefs.

The fact that Pederson is not going anywhere is also giving the Eagles time to consider sticking with Shurmur or hiring McAdoo or Coughlin, which could happen at any time.

In the meantime, only two of the seven teams that had coaching vacancies have made hires — the Dolphins with Gase and the Cleveland Browns with Hue Jackson.

The Giants, 49ers, Titans and Buccaneers still have openings in addition to the Eagles.

While we wait for the official hire to be made, the speculation will only continue. But at this point, you can take any coach that hasn't been interviewed off the list.

What we know is that the Eagles are pretty much done with looking for new candidates to interview and narrowing that already short list down to one.

Kevin Durso is managing editor for Eagledelphia. Follow him on Twitter @Kevin_Durso.