Philadelphia Eagles fans may criticize offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo for the offense's performance this season, but they must give him credit for handling the media with confidence when faced with tough questions.
After the Eagles' 34-17 loss to the New York Giants in Week 6, right tackle Lane Johnson was the first to speak to the media and became the poster child for the criticism of Patullo's play-calling. Johnson said it was too "predictable," which became the number one question to everyone else the rest of the night.
Patullo finally had a chance to respond to those comments during his press conference. Instead of being defensive, he actually gave credit to Johnson and the players for their communication with him.
"I think the comment Lane had, and what's great about the players is the communication with all of us is constant, whether it's during game, whether it's during the week, even on days off, things like that. That's been really, really good and productive for us. I think a lot of it comes down to is, and I know Nick alluded to this, too, is sometimes situational moments in the game where you're limited a little bit depending on where you're at [with] field position, down and distance, select plays, what the defense does at times, if they're a big edge pressure team during certain situations, that can dictate a little bit of what you want to do."
"I think when you talk about the situational stuff and/or the predictability, you've just got to look at where the whole context is, and I think that's what kind of the last day or so, over the weekend, things we were able to look at where we were, where we are, where we want to go, and what we know we need to do to go forward. I think it was very productive. We had a good meeting yesterday as an offensive unit, and so I think we're in a good spot working forward."
Things must get better on offense for the Eagles
Patullo's unit has gone south offensively this season, unlike anything Eagles fans have seen (even dating back to the Brian Johnson days in 2023). The offense is in the bottom five in total offense and passing yards.
Some of the problems include Jalen Hurts' struggles with consistently hitting the deep ball, while Patullo and the offense force-feeding the ball to A.J. Brown after his cryptic post on social media two weeks ago. The biggest issue is Patullo's ability to quickly move away from running the football.
This offense has gone two consecutive weeks of running for under 100 yards. They both happened to be losses. Coincidence?
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Patullo needs to find creative ways of getting Saquon Barkley the ball while his quarterback gets his groove back. If they can't get it done against the Minnesota Vikings in Week 7, this situation is only going to get worse for him.