Tag: Kevin Patullo

It was easy to catch the chants rising out of the Lincoln Financial Field stands Friday, a call for change that feels closer and closer to happening, no matter what Nick Sirianni might say, no matter how much the Eagles head coach might stand behind his friend and offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo. Those “FIRE-KEVIN” singsongs were clear to everyone inside the stadium and to a nationwide streaming audience on Prime Video.

Just like the Eagles’ 24-15 loss to the Chicago Bears and another ragged offensive performance, those chants and that atmosphere of frustration and disgruntlement were a sign that this season is reaching a tipping point. And for all the loyalty to Patullo and defiance to reality that Sirianni flashed after the game, his words might not end up meaning much.

“No, we’re not changing the play-caller,” Sirianni said, “but we will evaluate everything.”

The most important word in that sentence from Sirianni, though, was we, because we could end up including team chairman Jeffrey Lurie and vice president Howie Roseman, and those members of we have filmed this movie before — and not that long ago. Sirianni was equally steadfast in 2023 about taking up for then-defensive coordinator Sean Desai, but, sure enough, Sirianni’s defense of him was about as strong and effective as the Eagles’ defense under Desai and his replacement, Matt Patricia. That is, not very.

Now Patullo has become the latest poster child for the Peter Principle. He’s gregarious and friendly and has spent a lot of time in the NFL coaching quarterbacks but had spent no time calling plays until Sirianni turned the offense over to him. Now a unit that boasts some of the most talented and accomplished and highly paid skill-position players and offensive linemen in the league is among the worst offenses in the league. Twelve games this season, and the Eagles have scored 24 points or fewer in eight — two-thirds — of them, including the last four.

Lurie and the Eagles aren’t about to bench Jalen Hurts or A.J. Brown or Saquon Barkley or anyone else. And even if Patullo is hamstrung as a play-caller by Hurts’ height, by his reluctance or inability to throw the ball into tight windows of space, by the injuries and spotty play of the offensive line, he also hasn’t shown that he’s creative and imaginative enough to overcome those flaws and shortcomings in the offense.

Sirianni’s mantra, since his arrival, has been that players make plays, that a wide receiver or a lineman or a tight end, if he’s coached well enough in the fundamentals, ought to prevail in his one-on-one matchup against a cornerback or a defensive end or a linebacker. The problem for the Eagles is that they’re winning fewer of those micro-contests, those games within the game, than they did a year ago, and Patullo isn’t helping them win more of them.

A simple question was put to tight end Dallas Goedert after Sunday’s game: How often do you guys feel like you have a strategic advantage on a defense, where you’re going to fool them or you’re going to run something that they don’t see coming?

Goedert paused for five seconds, then answered.

“Tough question. I don’t know if I really have an answer for that one. We’ve got to make plays. We’ve got to execute better. And all 11 have to be on the same page.”

Barkley refused to chalk up the Eagles’ struggles to their strategy or system. “I don’t really look into plays like that,” he said. “The times that we have successful plays, it’s not just because we have a strategic edge. We’ve got guys making plays. We’ve got coaches making great calls.

“I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but I know what everyone is probably saying. When you go back and watch the film, we’ve got some great calls, and we just didn’t make the plays, or we’ll have a penalty. We keep seeing the same stuff. I get up here and say the same thing, and it’s not like I’m just feeding you guys these answers to, I don’t know, be a pro. But it’s the truth, and I guarantee Jordan [Mailata’s] saying the same thing. Zack [Baun’s] saying the same thing. Lane [Johnson’s] saying the same thing. The reality is, we’ve got to go do it.”

There is a chicken-or-egg element to the Patullo question. No one, other than Patullo himself, can say for certain whether he’s orchestrating this offense to account for Hurts’ weaknesses, whether he’s calling what Hurts is comfortable with and capable of carrying out, whether Hurts’ limitations are limiting Patullo’s options. There’s no getting around the reality that the Eagles have made Hurts and the passing game the locus of their offense before — early in 2021, early in 2024 — and each time, they shifted their play selection toward running the ball, toward taking it out of Hurts’ hands.

Last season, they won a championship with that approach because Barkley and the offensive line were that good, that dominant. The Eagles could afford to be predictable then; their opponents knew what was coming and still were powerless to stop it.

Now the Eagles’ opponents know what’s coming, know how to stop it, and do stop it. Lurie has always placed a premium on having a team that could score lots of points and do so relatively easily, and he can’t be happy with this two-game losing streak, this season-long slog, and the offense’s contributions to those developments. What had been a slump is now a slide and could yet be another collapse, and Lurie isn’t likely to let his head coach’s assertions and assurances stand in the way of a change that he deems necessary to save a shot at another Super Bowl.

There are games in the NFL that have repercussions. The Eagles’ 24-21 loss Sunday to the Cowboys — a game in which they blew a 21-point lead, throttled back their offense after taking that lead, and committed one egregious mistake after another — is likely to be one.

Those repercussions might yet be good for the Eagles. The NFL is so parity-ridden, each team separated from the other by such small differences, that it’s possible that Sunday’s meltdown will inspire the Eagles to clean up their sloppy play, beat the Chicago Bears on Black Friday, and embark on another deep playoff run. They’re still going to win the NFC East, at a minimum. It will be difficult to call such a season, no matter its final endpoint, a complete failure.

But Eagles chairman Jeffrey Lurie stopped judging his franchise by that standard a long time ago. Sunday’s loss went from See, the team is rounding into form to HOLY HELL EVERYONE’S WORST FEARS HAVE BEEN CONFIRMED in a matter of minutes. That sudden reversal of fortune, though, really had been the culmination of a steady accumulation of inconsistent performances, injuries to important players, and consternation both inside and outside the locker room.

Those conditions are the kind that, in the past, have compelled Lurie to act. It is, of course, true that the offensive line’s decline is a huge factor in the Eagles’ overall regression, maybe the biggest factor, and that reality, one could argue, should absolve Nick Sirianni, Kevin Patullo, Jalen Hurts, and anyone else for an 8-3 team that feels like it’s 3-8. But it’s naive to think, given the nature of Sunday’s loss and the arc of this season, that Lurie isn’t taking a long, hard look at the coaching staff, Sirianni included.

Raising such questions might seem premature or unnecessary. It’s not. There are reasons for Sirianni to be worried here — not necessarily that he’s going to be fired after the season, but that he’s more vulnerable than he once was. Nine months after winning the Super Bowl, six months after getting a contract extension, he ought to understand that, if recent history is any indication, there’s a lot at stake for him over the next 6-12 weeks. Consider:

1) The Eagles aren’t playing offense the way Lurie has generally wanted his teams to play offense.

This assertion is obvious, and it’s based on the Eagles’ production, or lack thereof. But it’s also based on the Eagles’ style of play.

For years, dating to the Andy Reid era, the Eagles made their bones by remaining aggressive in their play-calling even after taking a big lead, by using analytics to set themselves apart from the rest of the league. Sometimes, it cost them games. In February 2018, it won them their first Super Bowl. Lurie loves that approach.

The last two years, however, the Eagles have turned themselves into a full-fledged running team. Lurie is not necessarily anti-running the ball — not when it leads to the big plays and the Super Bowl victory that Saquon Barkley and that dominant offensive line delivered last season. But those plays haven’t materialized and the line hasn’t dominated this season, and Sirianni’s response has been to lean into being uber-conservative. He doesn’t call plays, no, but the offense is his, and he hasn’t prioritized piling up points. He has prioritized protecting the football, eliminating turnovers, and walking a thinner line to victory. He has tempted fate by trying to win games in a manner Lurie is inclined to reject once it fails.

2) Lurie has never hesitated to insist upon coaching changes when he has thought them necessary.

After the 2019 season, for instance, the Eagles parted ways with then-offensive coordinator Mike Groh and then-wide receivers coach Carson Walch. A year later, after the team’s disastrous 4-11-1 season in 2020, then-head coach Doug Pederson was fired.

For the moment, Patullo is a great shield for Sirianni. Everyone knows that Patullo is the Eagles’ offensive play-caller. Everyone knows that he’s a neophyte when it comes to this role and its responsibilities. And everyone can see that the Eagles offense has not been good this season, even though it has plenty of superstar-level players to whom Lurie is paying superstar-level dollars. So if the Eagles offense remains dysfunctional — and it really hasn’t been functional at all, not to the degree it was expected to be — Patullo will be and has been the coach who bears the blame, and a layer of protection will have been removed from Sirianni.

3) Lurie expects his franchise quarterback to grow into greatness, then remain there.

One of the problems that the Eagles’ play-not-to-lose strategy creates for Sirianni is the implication that Hurts can’t be trusted or isn’t at his best when asked to operate a more dynamic, more daring offense. Lurie doesn’t care and doesn’t want to hear that the Eagles’ coaches feel like they have to run a Frankenstein’s monster style of offense, patching together parts from several systems just to maximize Hurts’ skill set. He wants his franchise quarterback to be worth the franchise-quarterback money he’s paying him, and if that player isn’t meeting those expectations, Lurie will greenlight a search for a replacement only as a last resort.

Remember: Even after Carson Wentz’s horrible 2020 season, the Eagles fired Pederson first. They were willing to make it work with Wentz until they finally understood they couldn’t. Only then did they trade him.

4) Sirianni’s personality is different from Pederson’s, and that difference doesn’t help Sirianni.

Pederson was a go-along-to-get-along kind of guy, at least as much of one as an NFL head coach ever is. But after he won the Super Bowl, he started to assert himself. He wrote his autobiography. He sought more power within the organization, at least with respect to his assistants. Lurie eventually disabused him of those notions.

Sirianni is naturally more emotional and combative than Pederson. He, too, has won a Super Bowl, and his winning percentage is among the best of any head coach in league history. It’ll be interesting to see whether he’ll have to quell his assertiveness with Lurie and Howie Roseman — and if he’s able.