The Eagles season is obviously over and despite Kevin Patullo getting the axe, there are still a lot of questions. I am going to do my best to answer them…
Why Was Kevin Patullo Fired?
This is barely a real question to anyone who watched the games this year but I’m trying to frame the article, so indulge me. There are some “you don’t know ball”1 amateur film reviewers out there who will claim that Kevin Patullo wasn’t as bad as we think. Don’t listen to them. To anyone who watched the Eagles on a weekly basis, there was one constant: everything on offense was difficult. EVERYTHING.
The Eagles had a legitimately great defense this season, but you would still see opposing players get wide open at times. Whether it was a missed coverage or a great scheme opening up playmakers, it happens. Not for the Eagles offense though! There was damn near never a time a player was open unless he was coming back to the ball. This resulted in ZERO Eagles ranking in the Top-50 in yards after catch this season.2 That’s not only baffling but pretty damning for the offensive scheme. They had no basic plays that could get anyone open, ever. This isn’t on the QB my friends, it’s on the guy in charge. Everything looked hard this season because everything was hard this season.
Why Wasn’t Patullo Fired Sooner?
This is the great “What If” of the season. It was pretty obvious right away that Patullo had no business calling plays for the Eagles, but it came to a fever pitch after the loss to the Chicago Bears on November 28th. This was the first game that the defense didn’t mask all of the faults of the offense and we lost 24-15. Former Eagle CJGJ made it clear that the Bears knew EXACTLY what plays were coming every down. For context, this was coming off the Dallas meltdown where the offense completely disappeared in the 2nd half (a continuing theme). Patullo was obviously clueless on how to run even a high school offense let alone have any solutions to fix mounting problems. He was going to cost us a real shot at a repeat. This was the time to can him.
Why this game? Not only was it embarrassing, but it was played on a Friday before a Monday against the Chargers. While not as good as a bye week, it was still a solid chunk of time between games. There would be at least some time to implement the ideas of a new voice. That’s the rub though, who would be that new voice? We didn’t have any options (I’ll get to this in a minute).
In 2023, the Eagles defense was a mess after Jonathan Gannon left in such a way that Vic Fangio had to delay his homecoming by a year. Sean Desai was brought in. The defense was so bad that he was demoted after 13 games in favor of Matt Patricia. Things got even worse with the dysfunction. I have to think this played heavily in the front office decision to keep Patullo in his position.
If Not Patullo, Then Who?
This continues the answer to the previous question. While FIRE PATULLO was a familiar request from the Eagles universe all year, there was no follow up with any legitimate replacement ideas. Who did you want calling the plays? The coach? Nope, we’ll get to him.
Doug Peterson? While that sounds good, it would have caused a real problem with the current coach (knowing Nick, there absolutely would have been tension). The bigger problem would be the learning curve. A guy can’t just come in and know what’s going on within a team, know the roster, and have a solution that didn’t completely negate the previous 6 months of preparation. An outside hire wasn’t practical.
Scott Loeffler? He probably would have been the best candidate. The Eagles QB coach was the former HC for Bowling Green University the year before but had no previous experience running an NFL offense. Obviously neither did Kevin Patullo, so that should not have been a barrier to entry. He would have been the only guy with any kind of continuity on the staff to help. This was the play, but the Eagles didn’t take it.
Anyone else? There just wasn’t some magic cure all coordinator ready to come in to salvage the season. I would argue that someone having ANY idea of how to call plays to keep a defense guessing would have been better than what Patullo was doing, but the Eagles didn’t, I guess.
Where’s the Head Coach in All This?
Nick Sirianni was hired because he is a leader and knows how to motivate. This is the “CEO Coach” model. He has an offensive background as a former college WR and NFL WR coach, but he had no experience calling plays or designing an offense before he came to Philly.3 This is not unlike everyone’s darling in Detroit, Dan Campbell. Campbell is a great motivator and former player, but has as much experience designing an offense and calling plays as Sirianni and Patullo. None. With experienced coordinators doing the smart stuff, this type is not the wrong guy for the job.
There’s one big problem with the CEO coach though, they aren’t geniuses. Because they do not have ANY level of offensive (or defensive) design or play calling experience, there is no background knowledge they can pull from to help out when the team is in trouble. They are extremely limited in their utility. This was never more obvious than the end of the 49er playoff game. With the game on the line, the team needed a play and Sirianni was just an on looker to an incredulous Jalen Hurts staring at Patullo in disbelief over the play call. The Eagles were toast, Jalen knew it, and when the OC had clearly called a dud, the HC could only clap his hands and cheer it on.
Of course, the opposite of this is not all OCs and DCs are made to be head coaches. Often the genius of a good OC comes at the expense of communication and motivation skills. This is why Nick Sirianni has a job. Of course, it begs the biggest and final question…
WHY WAS KEVIN PATULLO HIRED IN THE FIRST PLACE???
When you have a CEO head coach, the coordinator positions need to be on point. Vic Fangio is the ultimate example of this and provides a direct foil to Patullo. Vic had his defense prepared and in position at all times. The amount of work and attention to detail he put in every week was evident each time an opponent failed. Vic knew what they wanted to do and wouldn’t let them do it.
How long do you think it would have taken Vic to diagnose a Kevin Patullo offense? Probably the amount of time it takes him to eat his lunch. It seemed like Patullo put no emphasis on his opponent each week as there was never a time the Eagles exploited even the weakest defenses. Take the 49ers game again. They were playing with backups to backups at LB and yet Patullo was still baffled. This was a theme throughout the year. While Vic was studying the other team all week, what the hell was Patullo doing?
He got the job because he is Nick’s friend. After the Super Bowl, Sirianni had the team by the balls and needed a new contract. I’m sure bringing in his buddy Patullo was part of the negotiation. Patullo had no experience and was given the job anyway. The Eagles simply can’t let a situation like that ever happen again under any circumstances.
- I love that internet mouth breathers use this phrase as some sort of flex. It is a great way of identifying a person who needs to feel important but has very little to actually feel important about. You will not get any legitimate discussion from a person who says this ↩︎
- Saquon Barkley came in at 56, DeVonta Smith was 57, AJ Brown was 70, and Dallas Goedert was 83. Even worse, that was it for the top 200 meaning no other Eagles player had more than 32 total YAC for the entire season. How is that possible??? ↩︎
- He was OC in Indy, but that was with Frank Reich who did the heavy lifting and wasn’t very successful in his own right. ↩︎
Philly Front Office 
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