JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Doug Pederson, who won a Super Bowl with the Philadelphia Eagles, is being hired as the new head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars, a league source told ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
The hiring ends a search that began 49 days after the team fired Urban Meyer and 35 days after Pederson first interviewed with the Jaguars.
Pederson went 42-31-1 and made three playoff appearances in five seasons in Philadelphia (2016-20). The Eagles drafted Carson Wentz second overall and went 7-9 in Pederson’s first season, but they went 13-3 in 2017, survived the loss of Wentz late in the season when Nick Foles got hot and beat New England 41-33 in Super Bowl LII.
Pederson led the Eagles to two more playoff appearances in 2018 and 2019. Philadelphia went 4-11-1 in 2020 and Pederson, who benched Wentz at halftime of the team’s Week 13 loss to Green Bay for rookie Jalen Hurts, was fired after the season.
Pederson spent the 2021 season out of football, but he was the first head-coaching candidate the Jaguars interviewed. That was on Dec. 30 and the Jaguars brought him back for a second interview on Tuesday.
Pederson began his NFL coaching career with Philadelphia and spent two years as an offensive quality control coach (2009-10) and two as quarterbacks coach (2011-12). He followed head coach Andy Reid to Kansas City after Reid was fired following the 2012 season and spent three seasons as the Chiefs’ offensive coordinator before being hired in 2016 to replace Chip Kelly in Philadelphia.
Pederson spent 10 years in the NFL mainly as a backup quarterback for Miami, Green Bay, Philadelphia and Cleveland, compiling a 3-14 record and completing 54.8 percent of his passes with 12 touchdowns and 19 interceptions.
The Jaguars interviewed nine other candidates: Jaguars interim head coach Darrell Bevell, Tampa Bay defensive coordinator Todd Bowles, Tampa Bay offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich, Green Bay offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett, Indianapolis defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus, former Indianapolis and Detroit head coach Jim Caldwell, Dallas offensive coordinator Kellen Moore, former Las Vegas interim head coach Rich Bisaccia, and Alabama offensive coordinator and former Houston head coach Bill O’Brien.
Denver hired Hackett and Chicago hired Eberflus, both of whom also got second interviews with the Jaguars, as did Leftwich.
Pederson replaces Meyer, whom the Jaguars fired with cause just before 1 a.m. ET on Dec. 16 because he went 2-11 and committed a string of embarrassing missteps that included two viral videos of him behaving inappropriately in a restaurant/bar with a woman who wasn’t his wife, reports of him berating his assistant coaches, and trying to hire a strength coach who was accused of making racist remarks and bullying Black players at Iowa.
The Jaguars have had just one winning season since 2007 and have lost 10 or more games in 10 of the last 11 seasons. The Jaguars finished 3-14 in 2021 and have the first pick in the NFL Draft again in 2022. Their combined record in the past two seasons is 4-29, which included a 20-game losing streak that is the second-longest in NFL history.