If you came here looking for a direct war of words between Dougs, you're in the wrong place.
Pederson wrote in his book, "Fearless: How an Underdog Becomes a Champion," that he was surprised the Jags took a knee with 55 seconds remaining in the first half of the title game. Jacksonville was up 14-10 and had two timeouts at the time.
"I was there thinking, 'You've got to be kidding me right now,'" Pederson wrote, according to ProFootballTalk. "It made me mad because Jacksonville had New England right where they wanted them. I was screaming at the TV in my office. When they knelt right before halftime, inside I was like, 'I'll never do that.' It fueled me. They could have least tried for a field goal. They took it out of their quarterback's hands, and they didn't give to their big back Leonard Fournette. I thought, 'If they lose this game, this is why.' Sure enough they would go on to lose the game."
In response to Pederson's anecdote, Marrone referenced a book he told reporters he had recently read, "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life."
"Hey, Doug won a Super Bowl," Marrone said. "Doug did a great job of coaching. I'm sure there's a long line of people that have the same questions or feelings. It's just what you're going to do.
"I read a book in the offseason by Mark Manson, the New York one, No. 1 bestseller on the New York Times' bestseller list], so those things happen and that's it. But I respect the hell out of him and his team and he won a [Super Bowl. We lost, and when you lose you question everything so I don't have a problem with it."
Good to know that while the rest of us morph to smartphone-gazing sheep with five-second attention spans, NFL coaches are still engaging in and promoting non-fiction literature.
If you too wish to dive into deep reads about football or the art of not giving a rat's ass about what another professional football coach thinks about your clock management, here is a list of essential selections compiled by our colleague Chris Wesseling.Â
