As Jim Schwartz said, "it's a short honeymoon in Philly."
Just minutes into his introductory press conference as the next head coach of the Eagles, two of the more important questions that could be thrown Doug Pederson's direction were answered.
Pederson would be calling the offensive plays and yes, he was the one calling the plays on the Chiefs final drive on Saturday that helped the New England Patriots advance.
Given the success of Pederson's operation under the close watchful eye of Andy Reid, that doesn't instill confidence in Eagles fans, who were far too used to close management woes during Reid's time with the Eagles.
Pederson elaborated on the final drive in his press conference on Tuesday.
"I was able to call plays [this season] really since the Pittsburgh game on, if you follow the Kansas City Chiefs," Pederson said. "Coach Reid and I had a great understanding and a great feel for the game. He allowed me to call the second half of every football game from that Steeler game on. The second half of our playoff game the other night, I had the second half. I did have the second half and so I called the entire second half at that point."
So what happened on the final drive?
"It took us time because No. 1, we did not want to give Tom Brady the ball back," Pederson said. "We knew we were going to score. We knew we had timeouts and time. We were also limited with the number of receivers; we had Jeremy Maclin out of the game at the time. We were down numbers. We felt like at that point, not to give the ball back to Tom Brady. We still had timeouts and time, even with the onside kick, to put ourselves in a position to tie the football game."
It sounds like broken logic, but in reality, it's actually a very sound breakdown of reasoning.
In fact, Colin Cowherd of FOX Sports Radio had a theory, that Pederson proved to be right, a day before Pederson's press conference on his show, The Herd, on Monday. Video of his explanation is below.
ICYMI: @ColinCowherd tells you why Andy Reid's clock management was genius against the Patriots. #HerdHere https://t.co/ZjSFSJjAGU
— Herd w/Colin Cowherd (@TheHerd) January 19, 2016
I think everyone can be in agreement that in that spot, trailing by 14 and needing to keep the ball as much as possible, trying to avoid seeing Tom Brady take the field again is logical. That said, once the Chiefs approached two-minute territory is when things really went awry.
Trying to burn clock time so that the Patriots feel they can't resort to a standard passing game with three or four minutes left is completely reasonable. But as the clock approached the two-minute warning, the goal should be to make everything happen as quickly as possible, especially given the low-percentage play that an onside kick would be.
By scoring as late as they did, the Chiefs needed to recover the onside kick to even have a chance, whereas a little bit of time and timeouts would have allowed the Chiefs to still freeze play, get the ball back and have one more shot.
It was a good plan that, in typical Reid fashion, didn't go as planned. It doesn't make the clock management wrong, it makes the execution wrong, and therefore look like the Chiefs wasted time.
Let's just hope Pederson doesn't constantly say he has to do a "better job."
Kevin Durso is managing editor for Eagledelphia. Follow him on Twitter @Kevin_Durso.
