Business Decision: Doug Pederson Cut His Own Son From The Jaguars 53-Man Roster
Icon Sportswire. Getty Images.Rarely is it ever a good idea to go into business with your family and friends. When there are dollars and livelihoods on the line, you need to be able to make some tough decisions out there. And if taking a massive shit on your son's hopes and dreams of one day getting a chance to play in the NFL is one of those decisions you need to make, then so be it.
Doug Pederson had to find that out the hard way when trimming the Jaguars' roster down to 53-men this week.
You can ground your son. You can take away his phone for a week. You can make him do all the dishes and mow the lawn and take out the trash for the next century. All these different ways to get him to be pissed off at you and think you're a prick. But to cut him from the roster when he was counting down the minutes to 4pm ET to find out if he'll actually get to call himself an NFL player? Cold, cold world.
Now here's what I love about this move--for far too long, you'd have dads as coaches at the youth level always showing egregious favoritism towards their sons. Little Johnny would have every single play designed for him, and the rest of the kids on the team knew their asses would be glued to the bench if they didn't get the ball to precious little Johnny. Even if Johnny sucked, his old man was the coach so he'd always be the most important player. But with Doug Pederson flipping the script here and cutting his own flesh and blood? We might see a ripple effect make its way to youth sports.
All across the country now, grown men are going to be cutting their 7-year-old sons from the team because Doug Pederson did it. They think it'll teach little Timmy a lesson about how to work harder for a spot on the roster instead of just getting preferential treatment. Mom is going to be furious, it's going to cause chaos at home, and little Timmy is going to hate his dad forever. All because Doug Pederson decided to keep Brenton Strange over his son as TE3.
Now let's go get some ice cream.