JaguarsTalk: FEARLESS: How an Underdog Becomes a Champion

JaguarsTalk: “Not doing what everyone else is doing usually works out pretty well for me.” - Coach Doug Pederson

It’s a quick and easy read. As Coach Pederson himself said earlier this year, “it’s even got pictures.” More importantly, it will tell you everything you need and want to know about how the 2022 Jaguars will operate under the fearless direction of Coach Doug Pederson (see what I did there?). Most importantly, it will tell you about the man and the code by which he lives. Every question you have about his coaching style, his choices for coordinators and coaches, what call he is going to make on fourth down, is answered. Not only will you know when he is going to go for it but he tells you why. This memoir is the answer key to the upcoming Jaguars season. For example, this year Pederson decided to cancel some OTA’s. For those who wondered why, the reason is in the book. In Chapter 8, page 140 he explains “when I was playing, Mike Holmgren and Mike Sherman in Green Bay took the Packers on some fun excursions - paintballing and bowling. One year we had a golf outing. So at the end of our offseason practices in 2017, I took the Eagles paintballing. I wanted them to show up to practice and then surprise them.” Sound familiar? It should, since Pederson did the exact same thing with the Jags (although it was Top Golf not paintballing). He literally gives you the key to his thought process so you fully understand why he makes certain calls. In FEARLESS, Coach Pederson talks not only about football but about life. In fact, the book is so well received, at least by this reader, because Pederson has one philosophy about life into which football neatly fits. Pederson lives the same way he coaches, or more aptly put, he coaches using the same principles by which he lives. He literally puts his money where his mouth is every day of his life and career. Coach Pederson is the definition of character: the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual. Now, we as Jaguars fans and sportswriters have the answers to all our questions, we just have to read the book.

There will be no need for press conferences, no need for sideline interviews, no need for O-Zone questions (except Gary from St. Augustine. One can never get enough Gary), no need for Monday morning quarterbacking. There may be “what ifs” that people will ponder. What if he didn’t go for it on fourth and two? What if he kicked the extra point instead of going for two? Frankly the way I look at these questions is two fold. First, if we are asking these types of “what ifs” then it means that the Jags are in contention, because nobody ponders these things in a blowout. Secondly, Pederson goes by a formula. He plays the odds. He wins more often than he loses. So those “what if” questions could easily be countered by the “what if he didn’t go for it on that particular fourth down?” Football boils down to a numbers game and while Pederson isn’t exactly Jonah Hill in Moneyball, if you read the book you will find that he is an analytics guy. With fourteen years in the NFL as a player, sixteen as a coach, and two Super Bowl rings, Pederson also has a feel for the flow of a game. Couple his “feel of the game” with his analytical style and the Jaguars have what may be a winning recipe.

FEARLESS will span a few columns for a couple of reasons. The first being that there is a lot of good stuff in this book to unpack. And… tangent time: I hate that term, “unpack.” It reminds me of all the stupid, typical, office, cubicle type job jargon that middle management comes up with because they think it sounds important. Let’s unpack that idea (Unpack? Are we back from a trip?). Table that and circle back (the Jen Psaki approach). Let’s touch base (as if any of them even know that deals with baseball). That’s some blue-sky thinking (hearing that would make it rain on my parade). Time for an idea shower (I’ll bring the soap to scrub that saying out of my brain). Run it up the flag-pole (if I were to ever hear that in an Office Space I swear to you all, this very day, that I will grab the piece of paper with said great idea, walk outside and quite literally run it up the nearest flagpole). Take that project off-piste (this is just an example of trying too hard to sound cool. I’m betting 30% of those who use this saying have ever been skiing or snowboarding and of that 30% maybe 5% have ever ventured off-piste). It’s TPS reports and Chotskie’s flair IRL (also if I ever use IRL again, let me have it in the comments). Milton needs to burn these idioms to the ground. “Has anyone seen my stapler?” Now back to the column. Again, the first reason this topic will span a few columns is that FEARLESS contains a lot of good stuff. The second being, it’s the dead zone folks and we need material. Mainly though, it’s the first reason.

In Chapter 2: Risk-taker, Pederson says something that really stuck with me throughout the entirety of the read. It puts things into perspective and allows the reader to understand everything that follows. Pederson says this in the context of football however as you read more about his philosophies on life, this excerpt shines light on why he does everything he does. In chapter 2, page 27, Pederson writes: “I’m considered a high-risk play caller. I’m fine with that. I didn't sign up to be average.” That last sentence is one to live by. And when you couple the above with the rest of the thought, one gets a great sense of how the Jaguars are currently being coached. He continues, “I want to be great in this business and leave my mark on young players’ lives and on our organization. Forget the status quo.” This half of a paragraph from the opening words of the second chapter set the stage for understanding the mindset under which the rest of the book is written. The bolded sentences above are not only telling of how Jacksonville will be coached, but also the philosophy into which the players will buy. Pederson lives by those two sentences and when he gets Trevor Lawrence and the rest of his player council to buy in, those leaders will make sure everybody else on that team lives by them as well. With that, trust is restored and the foundation of a winning team is born. The player council (chapter 9, page 150) is a way for Pederson to allow the leaders of the team to have skin in the game. The council members are voted on by the entire team thus giving all of them ownership. Owning something is a theme throughout FEARLESS. When one owns the outcome, decision, result etc… then one tends to give 110%. Pederson recognizes that with ownership comes responsibility which leads to accountability, all the “bility” words that make athletes better players and more importantly better people. “Every day they were seeing ownership, ownership, ownership. As they started believing it, it took on a life of its own. That helped carry us all the way through the season.” Pederson lives by the ownership mantra as well. “After a loss, when I address the team I usually put the blame on me…until we get to Tuesday.” Between the loss and Tuesday is when analysis takes place. Pederson uses this time to drill down to specifics and focus on eliminating the issues that caused the loss. This is the definition of coaching. He goes on to say, “after the loss, it’s, ‘I can do a better job. I can prepare you better. I can coach better.’” Ownership.

In FEARLESS you also understand why Coach Pederson didn’t require the vets to attend the last few days of OTA’s. Pederson trusts his process and his preparation. Many fans wrote in questioning his decision to give the league's worst team, two years running, time off. None of those fans are Super Bowl winning coaches. These are the same fans who are going to complain about the physicality of the upcoming training camp. These keyboard coaches will be especially plentiful if, god forbid, anyone gets hurt. But that will not stop Pederson from sticking to his formula. “A lot of coaches have gone away from physical training camps. Not me. When I first took the job as Eagles head coach, I made a big point of putting the pads on in camp and hitting.” He explains his decision to continue physical practices by saying, “we play a contact sport. Everything we do is hitting. Why wouldn’t you hit in training camp to prepare your body, to prepare your head and neck for the physical nature of the game?” This reminds me of the Jon Krakauer novel Into Thin Air about the Mount Everest disaster which claimed eight lives and stranded many others on that unforgiving mountain. After reading that book I watched the IMAX movie about the same summit attempt. In everything I read and saw was the notion of acclimatization. Getting your body used to a lack of oxygen at such heights. These climbers didn’t just start at sea level and then immediately climb to 29,032 feet. They slowly made their way, over the span of weeks, starting at base camp where they waited until their body was used to the thinner air. They would then move on from point to point, carefully making their way to the summit. In my own history, going through the fire academy, we never pulled hose or threw ladders in a t-shirt and shorts just because it was 90 degrees outside. We were dressed in full bunker gear, wearing SCBAs, because in the real world, when the tones dropped, we needed to be accustomed to the heat. We needed to be acclimatized. Understanding that I love me some Allen Iverson, I will have to side with Kobe Bryant in this instance. Coach Pederson had him speak to the Eagles in 2017 when they were in LA between West Coast games. Pederson had this to say about Kobe, “I loved what he said about practice - how the way you practice is the way you play.” Last I checked Kobe was the second best player ever in the NBA (you can argue that but you’d be wrong). Kobe Bryant's work ethic was second to none. The way that others talk about how he “practiced,” is almost mythical. When writing about his mentors in Chapter 10, Pederson recalls playing with the best pure passer and Pet Detective actor ever to play the game, Dan Marino. “He really shaped my perception about what practice is all about. He attacked practice every day, knowing that you win the game during the week, not on Sunday. And it was all about the preparation. There was no substitution for preparation and hard work.” The Eagles players in 2017 appreciated the difficult, hard hitting practices and when the wins begin to add up, so will the Jaguars. 

FEARLESS is a great read for any fan who wants to understand the football mindset of a Super Bowl winning coach. Doug Pederson goes in depth to explain the “why” behind his decisions. He practices what he preaches and empowers his players to take ownership of their team. He will mentally and physically prepare them for the long season while he and his staff give them the tools to win each game. All the players need to do is employ what they’ve learned. Coach Pederson sums up his duty to Jacksonville in Chapter 8, page 144, “Ultimately, I have a servant heart. I want to serve the players. I want to serve the organization. Whatever I can do to help us be better and to improve, I’ll pitch in and we’ll build something great together.” I’ll add “in Jacksonville” to the end of that quote, as he seemed to leave that out of this edition.

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