NFL insider says Eagles are keeping sports science around under Doug Pederson

NFL insider Adam Caplan appeared on Joe DeCamara show on 97.5 The Fanatic on Friday night and spoke at length about the Philadelphia Eagles' hire of Doug Pederson. The whole show is worth listening to since there's a lot of good insight, so go check it out. Here are some of the highlights from what Caplan had to say:

Sports science is here to stay

"You’re going to see sports science, that’s going to stay. Their own version of it. I think they know that the sports science plan has got to be altered. The way they implement it with Doug. Doug’s certainly on board with it. There’s value to sports science. More teams are using it. The buy -in really went away with Chip under his last year. Players didn’t like the way it was administered. I kind of hinted at that a little bit before, I’ll go a little bit more in depth. The problem that we saw under Chip Kelly and sports science … the players would get their assignments during the week from everyone but Chip."

What to expect from Doug Pederson's offense

I would tell you my first reaction over a week ago when I kind of got a sense it was going this way, this is the leading candidate right now because this is someone they believe could run their offense. By the way, they’re going to run a West Coast offense. You’re not going to see tempo much anymore.

He’s going to be, as a play caller … Their offense is going to be more aggressive than Andy Reid. What does that really mean? They’re probably going to throw it when you think they’re going to run it. They may throw a little bit more overall than most people would probably like them to do it. But he doesn’t really worry about that. He just believes it’s a passing league, and by the way, the analytics would show that. You should throw more than you run. The pass-run ratio should be heavier to pass than most teams. Let’s put it that way.

The Eagles have been in contact with Jim Schwartz

(More details on the report)

The Eagles talked to Jim Schwartz. I don’t know who called whom. That I don’t have confirmed. They’ve spoken. […] Again, I don’t know if he called them. There’s been communication.

Eagles might hire more than one new personnel guy

They’re not hiring a general manager. It’s going to be a personnel director. And they’re probably going to hire two people. At least one before the draft, I believe, and one possibly after the draft. But I think in the end it’s going to be two people. They have to. They’re very light on personnel people. They have to have a better structure of their front office. Let’s call it like it is. It’s just not really right right now. They have to figure this out. And they’ve got to support Doug. He’s a first time head coach. As we’ve outlined, he’s not been coaching for very long at the NFL level. It’s one thing to play, but to go forward here it’s another thing to manage people. We’re not going to know how he does that for awhile.

Doug Pederson > Ben McAdoo

"I think Doug Pederson is going to be a better head coach than Ben McAdoo. I just do. I’ve gotten so much information on Peterson. I don’t want to say it changed my mind. I wanted to get people who weren’t biased either way. I had people who like him personally but question if he’s ready because he hasn’t been in the NFL long enough. It’s a fair criticism. I have no problem with it. But I’ve talked to about seven people about Doug. I would say five real strong proponents, five that really like Doug and think he’s going to be good. Two that think he needs a little bit more seasoning. They might be right, by the way. "

Doug Pederson won't be a blame dodger like Chip was

Chip distanced himself from the players way too much. Doug is going to be a guy that will tell the players what they need to know. You have no idea how much that will get respect from the players. Chip lost his way in a big way this season. More than anyone understands. I will tell you this: Doug won’t do that. And Chip just … he was an issue skirter. He tried to skirt blame. As we all know. That’s one of the most damning things about Chip this season. That will not happen with Doug Pederson. Of course, he works for Andy Reid, as you know, Andy never deflects blame. He takes it. Like a man. I think people are really going to like Doug. A good man, a good coach. But again, you’re not going to know if this guy can handle the job for several months.

Doug Pederson has "swagger"

The fact of the matter is that know this guy can handle people.  I know from talking to one coach who probably knows him better than anyone I’ve talked to. I’ve talked to a bunch of people to get to know who Doug is. I’ve talked to Doug before but I don’t really know him. This is a guy who knows what he wants. When he talks to players, especially quarterbacks, he looks them in the eye and he tells them the truth. ‘This is what we need to do. This is how we’re going to do it.’ He’s got some ‘swagger.’ This is what one person gave me. I love word and I wrote it down. I’m looking at my notes on this guy.