PHILADELPHIA — Kevin Patullo and Jalen Hurts conferred at Hurts’ locker in the minutes after the Philadelphia Eagles’ 24-15 loss to the Chicago Bears, and as it stands now, Patullo will remain the Eagles’ play caller when the Eagles play next.
“We’re not changing the play caller,” coach Nick Sirianni said Friday night, “but we will evaluate everything.”
Sirianni continues to offer votes of confidence for Patullo, although it’s not convincing the fans. Television cameras caught chants of “Fire Kevin!” and the Black Friday crowd offered frequent boos for an offense that had twice as many three-and-outs as touchdowns.
Sirianni might understand the booing. He’s not yet ready to take the fans’ suggestion.
“I know it will keep coming back to Kevin, but again, if I thought it was one thing, then you make those changes,” Sirianni said. “Obviously, it’s a lot of different things, but I don’t think it is Kevin. Now, we all have a part in it. Kevin has a part of it. I have a part of it. All the coaches have a part of it. All the players have a part of it.”
There are 10 days before the Eagles play next, and decisions such as a major change at play caller are not typically made in the minutes after a game. The Eagles’ problems on offense go beyond Patullo, although the offensive coordinator is not offering much evidence to suggest he’s giving the Eagles an advantage with his scheme or play calling.
That was especially apparent when comparing the two offenses on the field Sunday. The Bears’ creativity and execution far outpaced the Eagles’, with Bears coach Ben Johnson looking as if he was playing on rookie mode in a video game while the Eagles were set to All-Madden. At halftime, the Eagles had two first downs while the Bears had 16. Only four teams all season have had two or fewer first downs in the first half.
Moving the ball seemed like a chore, and that statement was not limited to Friday. Hence the booing. The Eagles did not score a touchdown until the third quarter, going 78 minutes between touchdowns dating to Sunday’s collapse in Dallas. They’ve scored two or fewer touchdowns in six of 12 games this season. Their league-high three-and-punt rate remains. The Eagles rank No. 28 in offensive success rate, and it’s the worst in the last two decades. This is all happening with 10 of 11 returning starters — most of whom are Pro Bowlers — and more money invested in an offense than any other team in the NFL.
“I wish I could tell you this is exactly what it is, and this is hard,” Sirianni said about the problem with the Eagles’ offense. “It’s not easy to be successful, stay successful, so we have to, again, do it collectively. We have to do it collectively as a unit. Obviously, if I knew exactly what it was and everything that it was, then we’d have fixed it. But right now, we’re still searching and we’re still looking, and (there’s) a lot of football left to play.”
Whatever you think of Patullo, the offense requires better quarterback play if it’s going to improve. In that postgame conversation, Patullo was on one side of it. The other side was the franchise quarterback — and reigning Super Bowl MVP — who turned the ball over twice. Hurts finished 19 of 34 for 230 yards, two touchdowns and one interception to go along with 31 rushing yards, with most of the passing production coming in the fourth quarter when the Eagles were playing from behind. At the end of the third quarter, he was 8 of 16 — and only two completions on six third-down pass attempts. There were plays in which receivers appeared open, and the pass fell incomplete.
“Ultimately, you look inward first and I see it as how the flow of things has gone for us this year and being practical about that: I can’t turn the ball over, so the ultimate goal is to go out there and find a way to win,” Hurts said. “That’s been a direct correlation with success for us being able to protect the ball and so that really, really killed us.”
The turnover that proved most costly came on a play that’s supposed to be near automatic. After the Eagles’ best drive of the game cut the Bears’ lead to 10-9, Jalyx Hunt made a potential game-changing interception and gave the offense the ball in Bears territory. On a third-and-1 from the 12-yard line, everybody in the stadium knew Patullo’s call. The Eagles went with the Tush Push. Hurts lunged forward for the first down, but the whistle did not blow even when Hurts stopped moving. A Bears defender stripped the ball from his grasp, and the play was ruled a fumble. Hurts hoped that the officials would consider his forward progress as halted, but said he must hold on to the football. He acknowledged the play is “becoming tougher and tougher” to convert — and one potential pitfall for the polarizing push is that it leaves him susceptible to getting the ball stripped if the whistle is not blown.
“It definitely presents itself as an issue, and it always has,” Hurts said. “It’s just never gotten us and so today it got us and it’s something that we and I need to tighten up. … It’s been like that for a very long time.”
That play cost the Eagles their best chance of taking the lead late in the game. After that, they were playing catchup.
Saquon Barkley finished the game with 13 carries for 56 yards. (Bill Streicher / Imagn Images)
The point differential late in the game was Sirianni’s explanation for Saquon Barkley carrying the ball only 13 times for 56 yards. It came on a windy afternoon when the Bears had two running backs top 100 yards. It was a one-possession game for the Eagles’ first nine possessions, and Barkley had 12 carries through three quarters — fewer than both Bears running backs at that point. Converting first downs to extend drives helps — the Eagles were 1 of 7 on third downs through three quarters — but this seemed like an opportune time for Barkley to break his self-described “funk.”
The weather lent itself to running, the Bears were missing their top three linebackers and played lighter defensive packages, and they had been one of the NFL’s worst run defenses this season. That was still not a recipe to break loose last season’s rushing champion, who said he thought the offensive line was effective when he carried the ball.
“We know when we get the run game going, how effective this team could be,” Barkley said. “That’s what felt weird to me. We couldn’t establish the run game, not because — obviously, they played a great game — but it wasn’t like I was missing reads or the line wasn’t blocking up front. It was just kind of how the game flows. It was a weird game in that case.”
Inside the locker room, there was discussion about how the offense could improve — finding an identity, learning into tempo, winning the turnover differential, reducing penalties, taking advantage of advantageous defensive personnel.
One person the players did not directly blame: Patullo.
“I have confidence in us when we’re collaborative,” Hurts said. “I have a lot of confidence when we have an identity, so I think that’s the first thing that we have to establish that we’ve talked about.”
“We got the right people in this locker room to get it fixed,” said A.J. Brown, who had 10 catches for 132 yards and two touchdowns.
“I know what everyone’s probably saying (about the offense). You go back and you watch the film, we’ve got some great calls,” Barkley said. “We just didn’t make the plays. Or we’ll have a penalty. And the thing is, we keep saying the same stuff.”
Barkley is correct about that. The Eagles are 12 games into the season, and the offense’s lack of production and efficiency has been a topic after most games. The offense has scored 20.8 points per game — the worst of any team with a winning record. It was rationalized early in the season by adjusting to a new coordinator and playing top defenses.
What’s the excuse now?
The Eagles’ next game is in December. Their last two games were against defenses ranked in the bottom half of the league. Sirianni says everybody has a part in it, and that’s true. But only one person is calling plays, and those plays are not generating the points, yards or first downs that the Eagles need to have an offense that will win in January. Sirianni made a defensive play-calling change during a late-season slide two years ago — after a vote of confidence, no less — but that merely shuffled captains on a sinking ship. The Eagles need improvement. They went from 8-2 to 8-4 in six days. They have 10 days before they play the Los Angeles Chargers.
The offense was quiet again Friday while the booing and calls for Patullo’s job grew louder.
“The reality is whether fans are booing — and trust me, we’re not giving them anything to cheer about, especially on the offensive side of the ball — or whatever you guys write or say in the media, you guys can’t go out there and make the plays,” Barkley said. “And we know we have the guys (on the team) and we know we have the coaches. … Everything we want to accomplish is still there. We just got to come together. No pointing fingers.”