Philly Front Office

Yesterday was brutal and I’m not over it. It felt like that scene in Braveheart where the one army shows up and then retreats leaving William Wallace out to dry. If the offense had shown up at all yesterday, we would have been fine and the title defense would still be on. Instead, we are left crippled with no answers coming. Wallace put his faith in the wrong people. The Eagles thinking Kevin Patullo was going to show us something yesterday was no different.

Before I get my fire breathing started, let me address your first defense: I know Jalen Hurts played terrible yesterday. It was his worst game of the year. I’m not disputing that. Should he be benched? Are you crazy? No. That shouldn’t even be a thought. What’s more likely, that your Super Bowl MVP, All-Pro, non-stop thinking about football QB plus his all everything supporting cast forgot how to play football or that the guy in charge doesn’t know what he’s doing and everyone is demoralized? Don’t answer that yet. Let me give you some background.

Kevin Patullo is a 44-year-old New Jersian who played high school and college football at QB and WR. He was not a prospect. After some time as a graduate assistant, he was hired as an assistant with the pre-Andy Reid’s Chiefs. He then moved to the Bills for 3 years, the Titans for 1 year, and the Jets for 2 years. At each spot he was an assistant with no in game responsibility and was unceremoniously let go usually pretty quickly. None of those teams were any good. I’m not blaming Patullo for that, just adding that he was not some guru QB whisperer or anything.

In 2017 he got a job with Texas A&M as a “senior offensive analyst.” Again, no game day responsibility. The title of “analyst” was all the team could give him because they were at their max for the title of “coach.” That was Kevin Sumlin’s last year at College Station and Patullo moved on to the Colts where he presumably met Nick Sirianni.

The 2018 Colts were led by Frank Reich after he was poached from the Super Bowl winning Eagles. Sirianni was his offensive coordinator. Reich called the plays. Patullo was brought in to coach the WRs. This was the last season with Andrew Luck before he abruptly retired. The following year the Colts did not make the playoffs. Despite this, Patullo was promoted to “pass game specialist.” This would be their final seasons in Indy before both Patullo and Sirianni joined the Eagles. At this point, neither had ever called plays at any level.

Sirianni impressed enough in his interviews to be named the Eagles’ new head coach. Coming off a 4-11-1 disaster that saw Super Bowl winning coach Doug Pederson get fired, Sirianni was something completely different. Reports were that the Eagles front office wanted Doug to fire his Offensive Coordinator and friend Press Taylor, but Doug refused and got himself the axe too. The year started with Sirianni calling plays. Once this proved to be a bad idea, the team shifted that duty to OC Shane Steichen and the team took off, landing in the Super Bowl the very next season. This got Steichen a head coaching job in Indy and Patullo was promoted from “pass game coordinator” to “pass game coordinator plus associate head coach.” This is essentially a title and pay raise to keep someone from leaving.

Brian Johnson was promoted from QBs Coach to Offensive Coordinator and was in charge of calling plays. It was a lost season. Johnson was fired at the end of the season, but Patullo was essentially absolved of any wrongdoing but also not called upon as the answer to fix anything. He was strangely neither promoted nor fired. The following year under Kellen Moore, the Eagles won the Super Bowl. Moore was named head coach in New Orleans and at last Patullo’s long journey had finally landed in the gig of Offensive Coordinator and he would be calling plays for the first time.

Wait, what? Let me get this straight. The Super Bowl champions who just had one of the most dominant playoff runs you will ever see thanks to a loaded roster with Ferraris parked all over the skill positions and tanks everywhere else is going to have a driver who has never been behind the wheel before? I know they just made a movie about it, but this is like a guy who has only played video games before racing in F1.

Before you come in and say, “well he has to learn some time,” I have to stop you. Yes, he does have to learn sometime, but that sometime is not in the middle of a budding NFL dynasty. If he had literally ANY experience with the job, it would be one thing. He didn’t. The Offensive Coordinator gig for the Eagles is a King maker position, a direct conduit to a head coaching job. Patullo skipped the line with no previous experience.

How would you feel if you had a great job and just when everything was going well, the boss gave you a new supervisor who had never previously managed anyone before? Maybe they went to school for it, but had literally never told anyone what to do in their life. Oh yeah, and that person happened to be the best friend of your boss. Things predictably go bad. What are you supposed to do?

The place to learn to call plays is almost anywhere else. Simply because Patullo was on the Super Bowl staff does not make him qualified to call plays. You aren’t just selecting boxes like in Madden. It is a fast paced and nuanced job that requires creativity and experience. None of that was needed in any of his previous job titles. Oh yeah, it also involves dealing with the scrutiny of one of the biggest pressure cookers in all of sports. He got the job because he is Nick’s friend and was already on the team. That’s it. I’m not saying he has to go back to high school to learn to call plays, but being in charge of the champs is simply not where this phase of your career should start. We were inclined to do it with Nick because the team was terrible. It did not matter nearly as much. The stakes are exponentially higher now.

So earlier, when I asked if it’s the players who are all now spontaneously bad at their job despite doing that same job their whole lives and being in their physical primes – OR – if it is the guy who never did this job before at any level, what’s your answer?