Eagles players felt disrespected. It was a storyline all week while preparing to play the Atlanta Falcons. Imagine how Doug Pederson felt.

The Eagles head coach has not received much credit this year, and his qualifications were questioned plenty prior to the season. He deserves plenty of credit for the Eagles’ 15-10 win over the Falcons in an edge-of-your-seat thriller at Lincoln Financial Field in Saturday’s Divisional round of the playoffs.

Pederson put together a game plan designed to run the ball and didn’t stray. He threw in a play he hadn’t used all season that resulted in a 21-yarder from Nelson Agholor that put the Eagles at the three-yard line and set up their only touchdown.

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Finally, Pederson made the right decision on a pair of fourth downs. It all resulted in his first playoff victory as a head coach in his very first try.

“Everything kind of rushes through your mind, but the biggest emotion for me was the team, the guys, the resiliency of this football team,” said Pederson about his first playoff win after the game.

“Our backs to the wall, people discount us, don’t give us much credit, whatever it might be. For our team to battle against a fine football team, a team that was obviously at this time of year was playing extremely well, a hot football team. That’s one thing about this team I love so much. They battle to the end. That was the biggest rush of emotion was just thinking about the players.”

The Eagles ran the ball 32 times and attempted 30 passes. It’s one thing to build a game plan, it’s another to stay the course, especially when the running game wasn’t exactly chewing up big yards. It averaged just 3.0 yards rush.

“It’s on the coach,” said Jay Ajayi after the game. “He’s got to stick with us. Obviously, we have to show him that we’re getting good yards, the line has to do a great job, RBs have to run hard, pick up yards so he can continue to trust that we’re going to be productive in the ground. I give coach P credit for sticking with it.”

In addition to running the ball and continuing to run the ball, Pederson also made a smart decision on fourth downs.

His first was early in the second quarter when the Eagles were a yard away and trailing 3-0. He opted to go for it, handing it to LeGarrette Blount, who swept right and dashed into the end zone for his first touchdown since Oct. 29 against the 49ers.

“Early in the game, just where we were,” said Pederson, explaining why he chose to go for it rather than take a field goal to potentially tie the score.

On the fourth-and-1 decision from the three-yard line, Pederson was really tempted to go for a first down, though his team was ahead by just 12-10 at the time with just over six minutes to play.

“I was really considering that, going for it,” said the coach. “Elected to take the timeout, talk about it a little bit more then just ultimately kick the field goal.”

It was the right goal, putting the Birds up 15-10 and making the Falcons have to score a touchdown to win. It was also imperative to score points after a drive that had traveled 80 yards in 14 plays and chewed up 7 minutes, 57 seconds of the fourth-quarter clock.

As for the play call to Agholor, it came on third-and-3 at the Atlanta 24. Foles fake pitched to Ajayi, then handed off to Agholor down low who scurried to the three-yard line. The drive finished with Blount’s TD.

“It was a play that we actually had in our arsenal,” said Pederson. “We had it up in game plans before this season, just never got to it. We were in the right situation and it was just the right time.”

Now it’s time to host an NFC Championship Game for the first time since Jan. 23 when they beat the Falcons to go to the Super Bowl.