For years, Doug Pederson had to miss most of his son’s games. Now he’s ‘being a dad’ full-time watching him play in the UFL.

Doug Pederson hasn’t coached an NFL game since January. He wasn’t at the owners meetings in March, or the draft in April. He wasn’t running OTAs in May or minicamp this week.

Instead, the 57-year-old former Eagles coach has spent most of that time supporting his son, Josh, in the United Football League, a spring league that was borne out of a 2023 merger between the USFL and the XFL. Josh, 27, signed with the Houston Roughnecks as a tight end in February. This year, he played in eight games of the team’s 10-game regular season; Doug and his wife, Jeannie, went to four.

This is far from the norm for the longtime head coach. The NFL schedule doesn’t allow much downtime, even during the offseason, so before 2025, Pederson was able to see only a handful of his son’s games.

While Josh was playing tight end at the University of Louisiana at Monroe from 2017-20, Pederson was in the midst of a five-year run coaching the Eagles, guiding them to their first Super Bowl win along the way. After the Eagles fired Pederson, in 2021, he took a gap year — but Josh went undrafted. He was signed to a couple of practice squads but didn’t stick on an NFL roster.

In 2022, Pederson was hired to coach the Jaguars, while his son played for the Houston Gamblers of the USFL. A year later, the Jaguars signed Josh, waived him, and added him to the practice squad.

Josh called it a “dream come true.” He and his wife, Ryan, stayed at Doug and Jeannie’s house in Florida. The tight end made his NFL debut on Dec. 4, with his father a few feet away, playing in three games before the Jaguars cut him the following August.

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Even then, when the father and son were at the highest level of professional football together, Peterson wasn’t able to fully appreciate the moment.

“[Going to Roughnecks games] was different,” Pederson said. “I could be a little more of a fan. Be more of a dad, just going and supporting his son.”

He added: “My wife and I, we’re decked out in Houston Roughnecks gear. Got our T-shirts on, our hats on. Just supporting the guys.”

It has been a welcome change for Pederson. After he was fired by the Jaguars in January, he decided to lay low. He saw it as an opportunity to catch up on life, just as he did in 2021. During his gap year back then, Pederson was able to spend time with his brother, who was dying of pancreatic cancer, and attend Josh’s wedding.

Now, four years later, he’s using his newfound freedom to travel, visit his grandchildren, and go to Roughnecks games. Pederson sees it as a way of paying it forward, for all those moments his son rooted him on during his playing and coaching career.

Josh was able to go to Eagles regular-season games during his Christmas break in college, and was on the sidelines during the Eagles’ first Super Bowl win in 2018. He has vivid memories of being around the NovaCare Complex, spending time with Dallas Goedert and Zach Ertz, and finishing game days with a big bowl of Häagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream (win or lose).

Now, it is his father who is traveling cross country to cheer for his kid.

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“It’s kind of full circle,” said Pederson, who played 10 years in the NFL primarily as a backup quarterback. “My two oldest boys grew up when I played in the NFL. They were young, but they got to see it. Having another son come through and play professional football, it’s been neat to watch the growth and development he’s had in the last few years.”

While the head coach tries to embrace being a fan, he isn’t always able to take his “coaching goggles” off. Sometimes Pederson will give his son advice during games. On April 12, when the Roughnecks were in Memphis, he saw Josh jogging toward the locker room at halftime.

Houston was trailing 11-3, and Pederson thought of something that could help. So, he leaned over the railing and called out his son’s name.

“I was just watching how Memphis was defending Houston in the red zone, and I was like, ‘OK, this is how we would attack this certain coverage,’” Pederson said. “They kept repeating the coverage over and over.

“And so I told him, I said, ‘Josh, these are the type of concepts you guys need to get to.’ And he remembered the concepts from Jacksonville. Whether or not he said something in the locker room, they came out and ended up winning the game. I don’t know if that was the reason why, but it was just another set of eyes on the field that particular day.”

Added Josh: “He’s able to play the dad part, but he puts his coaching hat on, too. And then after the game we’re able to kind of replay everything and be like, ‘OK, I saw this, I saw that.’ I always take it and run with it, because he’s coached at the highest level.”

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Their conversations aren’t always about X’s and O’s. Like his son, Doug went undrafted in 1991. And like his son, he bounced around practice squads and different leagues — including the World League of American Football (WLAF) — before he made his NFL debut in 1993.

It’s allowed him to relate to Josh’s journey in a way few others could.

“Josh is going down that same path,” Pederson said. “And I just told him … don’t ever lose that hope. Don’t ever lose that dream of making it to the NFL, because you never know. Injury is a part of our game and part of the sport, and it can open up an opportunity that you may not expect.

“And so we do talk about that. We have had those conversations. Just to encourage him to stay the course, keep your head down. I think it’s a great opportunity for a lot of these players to play in the UFL. They’re young players who need valuable reps.”

Josh knows that he’s luckier than most. He has a professional coach at his disposal, and someone he can talk to about the hardships of the game. But despite all of that, he is eager to carve out his own identity. It’s why he’s encouraged his father to treat him as any other player.

Only when he’s wearing his coaching goggles, though. And for the most part, when Pederson is at Houston Roughnecks games, he’s there as a doting dad.

“In Jacksonville, I was with him every day, but in a more of a professional environment,” Josh said. “But with this, it’s back to father and son, football at its purest form. And it’s been the coolest thing these past few weeks, to look up at the stands, and see my dad there. It’s just been really cool.”