Kevin Patullo on struggles of Eagles offense: ’It never comes down to one thing.’

Kevin Patullo entered Tuesday’s regularly scheduled news conference with the Eagles’ second-half performance against the Buffalo Bills top of mind.

After a fairly efficient first half in Sunday night’s win, the offense was neutralized, mustering 17 yards on 17 plays in the second.

The Eagles offensive coordinator said the coaching staff rewatched those 17 plays on the plane ride back to Philadelphia. The coaches went through them again on Monday, then returned to them Tuesday afternoon, all in an effort to get to the root of their issues.

The common theme in the second half? Those persistent negative plays on early downs. Patullo acknowledged that four of the Eagles’ second-half drives featured inefficient first downs to put them in second-and-long. Those second-and-longs resulted in three third-and-longs.

“When you’re doing that, when that’s happening, it’s going to be very hard to move the ball,” Patullo said.

Most of those early downs were running plays. Saquon Barkley averaged just 1.75 yards per carry in the second half (three first-down carries, five second-down carries). He had two rushes for negative yardage and two that went for 1 yard each.

Patullo said in those situations, all the offense needs is a spark. It nearly had one late in the third quarter when Jalen Hurts initially completed a 17-yard pass to DeVonta Smith. After the Bills successfully challenged the ruling, the play was wiped off and the Eagles were back in third-and-long, putting them back in a rut they couldn’t escape.

“Those are the frustrating pieces that we’re looking at as a staff,” Patullo said. “How do we get out of those? What do we need to do better as a coaching staff? How do we execute better? Because, really, it’s not just one person, one thing, one play style, one call, it’s everything. We’ve got to look at everything. So it never comes down to one thing. But it’s the whole, full picture of everybody working together, making sure we’re on the same page of getting those done.”

Patullo said there is “something we kind of see a little bit right now” in terms of a fix, but he didn’t expand upon his findings.

The starting offense may not be able to work out those kinks in a game this week. Nick Sirianni said Monday that he was in the process of deciding whether the Eagles would rest their starters in the season finale against the Washington Commanders, even with the NFC’s No. 2 seed still up for grabs.

So, if Hurts & Co. are finished with the regular season, what would Patullo consider the personality of the offense after 16 games? And what does he want to lean into heading into the playoffs?

“I think there’s some things that we’re starting to see now that this is kind of who we want to be going forward,” Patullo said. “It’s kind of popped up as we’ve gone on throughout the season, because we’ve played such different games with different opponents that we’ve had and different styles of defenses. I think there’s certain things that Jalen’s doing a really, really nice job of, and we’ll continue to lean into that and just his exposure to things and experience in the playoffs will really help us going down the long road.”

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Patullo wasn’t clear or direct in his response. Still, it’s evident that the Eagles want to establish the running game and build passing plays off those looks, whether they’re utilizing under-center runs and play-action passes or run/pass options from the shotgun. The problem is that they’ve been inconsistent in that endeavor, as evidenced by the tale of two halves that characterized Sunday’s performance.

Neither the stats nor the eye test reflects well on the Eagles offense this season. The Eagles average 5.26 yards per play, the worst clip in the last five seasons under Sirianni. Their 36.7% third-down conversion rate is also the lowest in that span.

Has the Eagles offense reached its potential? Or is there a chance, with all of its talent, that it can flip the switch in the playoffs?

“I wouldn’t say there’s a switch,” Patullo said. “I think we’ve just been a little inconsistent. We know we have it in us to do what we need to do, because we’ve done it in spots. That’s what we’ve got to really lean into and press into and be detailed and do what we have to do.”

Sunday’s game marked the return of Jalen Carter and Jihaad Campbell to the lineup after lengthy hiatuses.

Carter, the 24-year-old defensive tackle, had been sidelined for three weeks while recovering from a pair of shoulder procedures. Campbell, the rookie inside linebacker, started his first game since Week 8 with Nakobe Dean out after hurting his hamstring against the Washington Commanders two weeks ago.

Both Carter and Campbell had substantial workloads and made the most of them. Carter played 76% of the defensive snaps and posted a sack, a pass breakup, and a blocked extra point, while Campbell played 93% of the snaps and had seven tackles and a fumble recovery. Vic Fangio said Carter “played well” despite the layoff.

“Really didn’t know how he would play, ’cause he missed three games, I believe,” the defensive coordinator said. “Didn’t practice until this past week, during that time. And I thought he played well. And I think he’s off to a good start. Hopefully he’ll build on that and play good down the stretch here and into the playoffs.”

Similarly, Fangio spoke highly of Campbell, who could have more opportunities in the season finale.

“I thought he did good,” Fangio said. “Obviously, there’s plays he’d like to have back and do over. But we don’t get mulligans. But I do think it will help him moving forward if he has to play again this week for Nakobe, and then if he has to be called upon in the playoff game.”