When Philadelphia Eagles offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo speaks to the media, it’s often difficult to decipher the word soup.
The Eagles’ embattled offensive coordinator has seen his unit largely underperform this season. They struggle to run the ball, pass it with consistency, and maintain drives. They are 22nd in first downs converted, 29th in yards per play (4.4), and 16th in expected points.
The Eagles have done two things well: avoid turnovers and score touchdowns once inside the red zone, and those are the primary reasons why they are 4-1 and not 2-3.
Even with a new offensive coordinator, the depth of the offense’s struggles have been surprising. This is, after all, an offense that returned 10 of 11 starters, most of whom are Pro Bowl caliber players. All of them are coming off a Super Bowl victory in which the offense dominated the final two games. Patullo was the coordinator of the passing game prior to his promotion this off-season, but the unevenness of his play-calling leads one to wonder what, exactly, it is a passing game coordinator is responsible for.
Needless to say, Patullo has been under the gun in his weekly press conferences. After their first loss of the season to the Broncos on Sunday, Tuesday’s presser was more of the same. Reporters have real questions to ask of Patullo and this offense. Everyone understood there would be growing pains, but not to this degree.
It’s concerning Patullo seems incapable or unwilling to answer straightforward questions with answers that make any sense in the English language. His philosophy seems to be, “Why use 20 words succinctly when 55 fluff words will do?” And it’s not style I’m criticizing. It’s substance.
There isn’t any.
He was asked about the data that indicates the Eagles are getting to the line of scrimmage later in the play clock than any other team in football, and whether that’s created problems for Hurts and the offense. His answer read like stereo installation instructions.
”I think when you look at each play, sometimes plays can have multiple things in them, so there’s a little more going in in the huddle or there’s a little more at the line of scrimmage that we’re assessing or motioning or things like that. I don’t think there’s one specific thing. I know we’re constantly pressing on it as far as coaches and players, we’re all into it. We know we’ve got to just maintain it and be on it, so it’s not an issue.”
Are the plays coming into Hurts on time?
“Yeah, I mean it’s not anything specific; we’ve just got to keep working through it.”
On the disparity between the run and the pass on a weekly basis:
“It’s in-game a little bit,” Patullo said. “‘Okay, maybe I threw it on the first one, then I’ve got to run it,’ or it’s also previous games. Field position kind of has a play into it, too. What kind of personnel we’re in offensively, what kind of personnel they’re in defensively. So, it’s a constant kind of working through whether it’s far as an analytical thing, whether it’s far as just a coaching feel thing, there’s a back and forth where you got to just work through it to make sure you’re covering different areas. You’re not just all into one and into the other.”
If you came out of that wilderness of words not understanding what the heck Patullo was talking about, get in line. It forms to the left.
You hear this coaching babble a lot from Patullo, Nick Sirianni and Jalen Hurts. All have learned the art of saying a lot without saying anything at all. It’s a way to disarm reporters by making it sound like a detailed answer was given when, in actuality, no real answer was offered at all. There are two possible reasons Patullo speaks like this.
- He doesn’t want to give anything away to opposing defenses, which, let’s be honest, is lame at this point.
- He doesn’t have any real idea how to answer the question.
I know which one feels more likely to me.
Perhaps most concerning about Patullo through five games is the Eagles’ inability to offer in-game adjustments. Again, this is not solely on Patullo. Hurts certainly has a large hand in the Jekyll and Hyde nature of the offense, but Patullo’s play-calling seems reactionary while at the same time being slow to react.
For example, the Eagles’ best run of the day came on this gorgeous play to Saquon Barkley for 17 yards. It looked like shades of 2024.
Of course, they never ran it again during the course of the game, and Patullo was asked why.
“It was a situational play that we got to in the moment, and so it is kind of the way it worked out with the personnel we were in and it just kind of fit like that.”
In other words, in Patullo’s mind, this play call could only be run in a very specific situation, in tempo, when indicated by the defense. It fails to take into account the play could have been called when not in the hurry-up, and it also fails to allow the Eagles offense to set the tone and dictate the style of play. You could go back to that personnel, go back to running tempo and dial it up. Or something like it.
We all know the offense is averse to turnovers and operates under a philosophy of “take what the defense gives us,” but this is a talented team loaded with experience. Where is the “The Dagger” mentality by Nick Sirianni from Super Bowl LIX? Don’t you need to sprinkle in a little aggression and, every once in a while, dictate the action?
Perhaps Patullo and the offense don’t have enough answers to respond with more aggression, but that would be hard to believe based on how long this group has been together and their overall talent. It’s not like Patullo has spent his four years in Philadelphia inside an iron lung. As passing game coordinator, surely he should know how to create openings for his talented roster, whether it be in man coverage or zone. Surely he should know how plays build off of one another, and to recognize when something works and to at least try it again. We’re not saving bullets for Week 14 already, are we?
We’ll see if Patullo’s nonsensical, evasive press conferences are a feature and not a bug as the season rolls along. For now, don’t expect many concrete answers to reporters’ simple questions.
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