Eagles on Kevin Patullo's performance and future after playoff loss

In the wake of Sunday’s 23-19 loss to the 49ers in the NFC wild-card round, Nick Sirianni didn’t want to comment on the performance of offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo.

But that day is coming soon. And the Eagles are likely to speak with action.

“There will be time to evaluate everybody’s performance,” Sirianni said after the loss. “Right now, I feel for all our guys in the locker room, all the players, all the coaches, the front office, everybody that works so hard, the fans that come out and support us, Mr. (Jeffrey) Lurie. I feel for all of us, all of them, and there’ll be time to evaluate everything coming up.”

As the Eagles evaluate everything, they’re going to see an offense that struggled all season and struggled still in a playoff loss. An offense that was overly simple, predictable and never well-sequenced. An offense that never improved and failed on Sunday in the same ways it failed all season.

Just like it has been all year, the criticism is pointed directly at the Eagles’ offensive coordinator.

“That’s very unfair,” left tackle Jordan Mailata said. “When you look at the play from a player’s standpoint, execution plays a massive role and there were just so many plays, so many games, where we just weren’t executing up front. I do think it’s a little unfair to point the finger at KP for the way the season ended.”

Sure, it wasn’t all Patullo’s fault. There were execution errors, but when the same execution errors continue to happen into January, it’s hard to not blame coaching. The Eagles dismissed former OC Brian Johnson after the 2023 season for an offense that significantly outperformed this one.

“I think it’s tough to single out one individual, especially in a moment like this,” Jalen Hurts said. “We all got to improve and that’s how I look at everything that we go through.”

Sirianni is at fault here too. He promoted Patullo, his right-hand man, and was unable to right the ship when it kept tipping. Sirianni prides himself on being an offensive mind but it was his offense that failed along with Patullo calling it.

The Eagles returned 10 of 11 offensive starters from the Super Bowl season and the one major change was at the OC spot where Patullo replaced Kellen Moore, who left for the Saints’ head coaching job. So that’s where the blame has been pointed all season. Completely fair or not, that’s part of the job.

“It does bother me,” left guard Landon Dickerson said. “Everybody shares blame but everybody’s going to point to somebody. It’s hard for people on the outside that don’t understand what goes on and the details of everything. I think he handled the criticism well, didn’t let it get to him and that’s all you can do.”

“It’s easier to blame somebody who gets paid less than your starting people, right?” Mailata said. “And everybody knows that. Everyone in this f— locker room, even you guys know that. But the story makes better sense if we’re pointing to somebody else, not the players.”

Of course, Sirianni is a Super Bowl-winning head coach who has seemingly built up some equity. And the quarterback isn’t going anywhere either. But we all saw the product this year and know the status quo certainly isn’t good enough — so there’s only one answer. The blame is going to go directly to Patullo and it would be unfathomable for the Eagles to bring him back in that role.

Does that make Patullo a scapegoat? Yeah, probably a little bit. But based on the results and the expectations, something has to happen.

And we all know what it is.

The bigger question is if changing that one position will be enough to fix the offense.