Eagles pick up Doug Pederson's option, coach signed through 2020

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The Eagles have picked up an option year on Doug Pederson’s contract that can keep the head coach in Philly through the 2020 season, a league source confirmed to NBC Sports Philadelphia’s Derrick Gunn. NFL Network first reported the news. 

Of course, the Eagles want to keep their Super Bowl coach longer. 

In 2016, Pederson signed a four-year deal that included a fifth-year option. The Eagles simply picked up that option. 

Call it a no-brainer. 

Pederson, 50, just led the Eagles to their first-ever Super Bowl and did so with a backup quarterback and without several other key pieces. He deserves to get this extra year. 

Plenty of people doubted the Eagles when they named Pederson their head coach in the offseason before the 2016 season. But after plenty of doubters early, he’s proven to be a really good head coach. Pederson clearly has the qualities the Eagles were looking for in a head coach. 

After the Eagles fired Chip Kelly, owner Jeff Lurie said he was looking for a head coach who possessed “emotional intelligence,” a saying that became a funny phrase that got tossed around often. But over the last two years, Pederson has shown that quality plenty of times, becoming coach for whom players want to play. 

He’s also proven to be incredibly aggressive. While Kelly was supposed to transform the NFL, it’s Pederson who has proven to be even more unconventional between the lines. Pederson’s aggressive nature has shown itself throughout his two years at the helm and helped the Eagles reach the mountaintop a few months ago. 

While he had a 2-7 record as a quarterback for the Eagles in 1999, Pederson is more than making up for it as a head coach. In his first two years, Pederson has put together a 20-12 record, including a 13-3 record last season. That, of course, doesn’t include the three playoff wins, capped off by Super Bowl LII. 

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