Jim Schwartz on Tuesday defended his relationship with Doug Pederson and denied having issues with the head coach.
Schwartz is in his second season as the Philadelphia Eagles’ defensive coordinator, while Pederson is in his second season as Philly’s head coach. A Philly.com article by Jeff McLane last week seemed to suggest many believe Schwartz is trying to usurp Pederson as head coach. Schwartz, who has five years of head coaching experience in the NFL, says that’s not the case.
“I’ll say this,” Schwartz said Tuesday via NJ.com’s Matt Lombardo. “And I’ll say this unequivocally: I am very comfortable with my relationship with Doug Pederson. I know he’s comfortable in his relationship with me. What I do here is, I work extremely hard to execute the defense the way that he has outlined it for me. OK? I’m very comfortable with that. Not everybody is privy to those instructions.
“If anybody misunderstands or misinterprets any actions, just know this: Coach Pederson is aware of everything that I do in this building and outside of the building.”
Schwartz then cited an example of how he’s enforcing Pederson’s rules, making it seem like he is being a good subordinate.
A lot of the chatter about Schwartz potentially replacing Pederson was started when former NFL GM turned analyst Mike Lombardi was critical of Pederson in a video posted by The Ringer in early September:
.@mlombardiNFL wants to know if the Eagles will admit their mistake or if they'll throw away 2017 by sticking to the Pederson principle pic.twitter.com/Vw3ubDzBic
— The Ringer (@ringer) September 3, 2017
Ultimately, the better Schwartz does at his job, the better the Eagles will do. And if both of those things happen, the likelihood is that Schwartz gets a head coaching opportunity elsewhere, while Pederson remains Philly’s head coach.
