‘KP was just dying on the cross for us.’ Kevin Patullo’s offense is finally rolling as Eagles head into bye week

It took a few weeks with the new coordinator, but he figured it out, and the offense started producing.

A few months later, the Eagles won Super Bowl LIX.

That was last year.

Kellen Moore introduced a radically new scheme. It took five weeks, give or take, for the Eagles to work out the kinks, and Moore was criticized the entire time. That was with a relatively stable roster, especially along the offensive line. The offense developed a run-first personality, emphasized ball security, beat the Chiefs in the Super Bowl, and earned Moore the head coaching job in New Orleans.

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Fast-forward a few months, and no one in the Eagles organization took more heat over the first seven weeks than Kevin Patullo, Moore’s successor and head coach Nick Sirianni’s longtime majordomo.

Patullo has never been a coordinator before and inherited much of Moore’s simple scheme and elite personnel, but that personnel did not practice together even once for the entirety of training camp. Eight games into the season, the same five offensive linemen have not started and finished two games in a row.

“You need continuity,” left tackle Jordan Mailata insisted.

Excuses? Maybe.

Explanations? Definitely.

At any rate, Patullo’s offense averaged 23.6 points in the first six games of the season. After Sunday’s 38-20 win against the Giants, it is averaging 33.0 points in the last two games.

Moore’s offense averaged just 21.2 points through the first five games last season. It takes offenses time to synchronize.

“There’s always a period of trying to figure things out,” said quarterback Jalen Hurts, who has now had five offensive coordinators in six NFL seasons.

“Yeah,” said left guard Landon Dickerson, “remember last year, our start, and everyone wanted Kellen Moore fired?”

Then, Moore’s offense synchronized.

With the Eagles entering the bye week with a 6-2 record, consider Patullo’s offense synchronized. The guys finally get it. He’s a bit scarred, but he’s still standing.

“What Kevin’s done a really good job of is being able to block out anything that can be a distraction to him and working like crazy to put himself in the best position to call the best game that he can each week, regardless of what’s going on,” said Sirianni, himself a weary recipient of the fury of this impatient fan base.

“We knew KP was getting a chunk of the blame, but we knew, as a locker room, it was us,” Mailata said. “KP was just dying on the cross for us.”

He’s been resurrected.

This looks like an offense with a plan and a direction.

Even more significantly, over the last two weeks, incorporating under-center snaps, play-action, and run-pass option, it looks like an unpredictable, diverse offense.

Perhaps most significantly, it scored 38 points and produced four touchdown passes without the services of perpetual malcontent A.J. Brown, the best and least mollified receiver in franchise history. Brown missed the game with a mysterious hamstring injury. (Also, on social media, he repeatedly has hinted that he would like to be traded. The Eagles have a bye next week. The trade deadline is Nov. 4, which means missing Sunday’s game ensured that Brown would not incur further(?) injury by sitting out. But that’s a different discussion.)

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It’s foolish to think the offense, despite Sunday’s success, would be better without Brown. It’s wiser to admit that, with Brown, Sunday would have been even better, after seven weeks of twists and tweaks.

“You realize what you’re bad at, what you’re good at, and where you need to help,” Mailata said. “Kevin’s doing a great job of adapting play calling to, you know, guys we have available and teams we’re playing.”

He pointed to the plays on which Fred Johnson reported as an extra tackle, the first two of which resulted in a 65-yard touchdown run for Saquon Barkley, then an 18-yard run for Tank Bigsby. Patullo also called passing plays on two of Johnson’s insertions.

The Eagles also increased their league lead in red-zone efficiency, now at 85% after scoring touchdowns on all three trips inside the Giants’ 20-yard line.

Sunday proved that the offense can be dominant; at least, it can be dominant against a plucky, inconsistent Giants team that fell to 2-6. It clearly built on a similarly competent performance in Minneapolis the previous week against a Vikings club that was 3-2 entering the game.

In that game, Hurts compiled a perfect 158.3 passer rating, with 326 yards, three touchdowns, and no interceptions. It was the best game of his career as a passer.

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Sunday, Hurts’ rating was 141.5, with 179 yards, four touchdowns, and no interceptions. It was the second-best day of his career as a passer.

Two weeks ago, the Eagles were concerned that Patullo’s offense might never jell. Now they can breathe easier during their week off.

“Sense of relief, yeah,” Mailata said. “I think it does help with the confidence going into the bye week, that we’ve strung along two great games — one game dominant passing, and then the next game dominant in the run game.”

On Sunday the passing was easier partly because the Giants’ secondary was thinned by injury and partly because the Eagles’ running game erupted.

Barkley’s first touch, the second play of the game, was that 65-yard touchdown run. He finished with 150 rushing yards, more than any other two games combined this season. Barkley suffered a minor groin injury, which gave more touches to Bigsby, who gained 104 yards, the second-best total of his career.

The running game produced a total of 276 yards, almost 120 more yards than the Eagles’ previous season high and the first time in five weeks they broke the 100-yard mark.

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Again, they did it without Brown, one of their more potent weapons in history. They did it with Brett Toth starting his first NFL game at center, where he is replacing Pro Bowler Cam Jurgens. They did it against a Giants team that dominated them in East Rutherford just over two weeks ago.

How’d ya’ll do it, Jalen?

Same as every year:

“Just got to be persistent.”