The Eagles offense has made turnarounds after breaks before. Can they do it again?

In a span of five days, the Eagles went from undefeated to unsuccessful, dropping back-to-back games for the first time since 2023.

But as recent history indicates, the four days that followed the Eagles’ 34-17 loss to the New York Giants — the mini-bye week, so to speak, before the week of preparation began for the Minnesota Vikings — could be critical to the team’s success going forward.

Saquon Barkley ought to know the power of a reset. When Barkley visited MetLife Stadium in Week 7 of 2024, the Eagles had reversed course from their 2-2 start to the season at the bye week, in part because of their decision to make the running back the focal point of the offense. He made a statement in that game, rushing for 176 yards and a touchdown on just 17 carries.

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On Thursday, though, that performance was ancient history. Barkley mustered just 58 rushing yards on 12 carries, which would have been his second-lowest output in a game had it occurred last season. Instead, it was his third-highest this year.

For seemingly the sixth straight week, Barkley stood at his stall in the locker room after the game and emphasized that the Eagles’ offense is “close” to clicking — but he also stressed that he was tired of repeating that same refrain.

The five days that saw the Eagles lose to the Giants and the Denver Broncos served as a reminder that the team has room for improvement. The next four would provide a chance to step back and figure out the how behind that improvement.

“It’s perfect for these four days,” Barkley said. “A little mini-break. Get away from each other for a little bit. Sometimes, that’s good. Last time we had a little break, a little bye, it helped us out a lot.

“Obviously, every year, I don’t want to compare it to years prior, but I know what it’s going to do for my body. I know what it’s going to do for my mental. Hopefully it does the same for everybody else.”

Barkley may not want to compare the Eagles’ 2025 struggles to the situation they successfully navigated early last season, but Nick Sirianni doesn’t operate in a vacuum. In fact, last year’s rebound was somewhat reminiscent of the turnaround that the Eagles head coach orchestrated in his first year at the helm in 2021, taking the team from 2-5 to the playoffs.

That year, he turned the play-calling controls over to then-offensive coordinator Shane Steichen around the mini-bye following the Eagles’ Thursday night loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 6. That move isn’t in the cards for the Eagles right now as it relates to Kevin Patullo. Sirianni responded “no” when asked Monday if he had decided to make a change to the offensive play-calling in any way.

Still, Sirianni said he and the coaching staff have “a lot of things that we want to put into action,” with Patullo leading that conversation with the offensive personnel upon their return to the NovaCare Complex on Monday.

“Not in this sport, do you ever want to get into a situation where it’s a blame,” Sirianni said. “So, it’s always about finding solutions. We feel like we did some of that; now we’ve got to go put it to work and I’m excited about that opportunity.”

Can the Eagles offense right the ship at the break for a third time under Sirianni? If so, how?

Back in May, when the Eagles extended Sirianni’s contract, he reflected on the two qualities an NFL head coach must possess to be successful — a strong work ethic and an ability to embrace adversity.

He explained that adversity is at the core of his identity, both in football and in life, from the leg injury that nearly ended his playing career as a wide receiver at Mount Union in 2001 to the catastrophic end to the 2023 season that saw the Eagles finish 1-6 over their final seven games.

“You think back on your old experiences, you look back at adversities that we’ve had. I’m thankful for those,” Sirianni said Wednesday, echoing his comments from the spring. “Obviously, this is a new year and new things, but I’m thankful for ’23. I’m thankful for how ’24 started off because it put us in a position to do what we ultimately wanted to accomplish, our goal last year.

“That is a mindset that is really critical to have, that adversities that you go through make you stronger if you allow it to.”

To understand the potential path forward for the 2025 Eagles offense, there’s value in evaluating how they’ve successfully and swiftly handled adversities (i.e. losing) under Sirianni, starting with his first season as head coach.

In 2021, Sirianni didn’t simply relinquish play-calling duties to Steichen and then call it a day. He altered the newly-installed offense to rely less on a second-year Hurts in the passing game and lean into the run game more, leveraging the talents of the quarterback, running back Miles Sanders, and the vaunted Eagles offensive line on the ground.

Through the first seven games of the season, the Eagles were averaging 5.0 yards per carry, but they were running the ball just 23.4 times per game compared to 34.7 pass attempts.

The plan to emphasize the run didn’t take hold immediately after the mini-bye. The following week, the Eagles quickly fell behind to the Las Vegas Raiders and were forced to drop back. But in the 10 regular-season games that followed, in which the Eagles went 7-3, the offense drastically increased to 38.6 carries per game (to 25.1 pass attempts per game) while dropping just slightly in efficiency (4.8 yards per carry).

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Similarly, through four games leading up to the Eagles’ Week 5 bye in 2024, the recently-installed offense under Kellen Moore had not been maximizing Barkley’s talents behind a dominant offensive line. The run game was averaging 5.1 yards per carry, but pass attempts outnumbered rushing attempts, with the Eagles averaging 33 pass attempts per game compared to 30 carries.

At the same time, Hurts was turning the ball over at an alarming rate in the passing game — 17.5% of the Eagles’ drives ended in a turnover.

During the bye week, key members of the Eagles offensive line including Lane Johnson, Landon Dickerson, and Jordan Mailata, approached Sirianni and Moore with a clear objective — “We’ve got Saquon f-ing Barkley,” Johnson said at the time. “Let’s give him the f-ing ball.”

Sirianni, again to his credit, made the necessary adjustments, meshing the new with the old by incorporating more concepts that made the Eagles successful in 2021. The run game became a much more prevalent part of the offense, as the Eagles averaged 38.5 carries per game after the bye week while, again, decreasing a bit in efficiency (4.9 yards per carry). Meanwhile, while the Eagles were passing less frequently (24.3 pass attempts per game), they were much more efficient, going from 5.8 yards per pass before the bye to 7.4 after.

Hurts and backups Kenny Pickett and Tanner McKee, who made appearances late in the 2025 season, were also much smarter with the ball. Just 5.3% of drives ended in turnovers after the bye week.

A key difference between 2021/2024 and 2025 is that the run game was already clicking before the mini-bye/bye. The 2025 Eagles offense is averaging just 3.5 rushing yards per carry, roughly a full yard and a half less per carry than the pre-bye offenses in 2021 and 2024. Granted, the Eagles are running it even less often than they were before the bye last year, averaging 27 carries per game.

But if the Eagles offense wants to improve through the remaining 11 games of the season, the run game’s success is going to be critical, according to Mailata.

“I think if we establish the run game, that will take care of everything,” Mailata said Wednesday.

Unsurprisingly, neither Sirianni nor Patullo would reveal specifics of how they intend to help stabilize an Eagles offense that has run hot and cold through the first six games of the season. But they didn’t exactly divulge a state secret when they acknowledged that the offense has struggled on first and second down, putting themselves in predictable, obvious passing situations on third-and-long.

Last Thursday’s loss to the Giants embodied that trend. Third-and-long (i.e., third-and-6-plus) spelled failure for the Eagles offense. They converted just one of seven third-and-long drop backs on the night, with the lone conversion occurring on a touchdown drive. Of those six failed attempts, four were preceded by negative rushing plays on second down.

“I think when you look at those stretches, and that’s kind of where we’ve hit those bumps throughout games up until this point, whether it’s an inefficient first down or an inefficient second down and you get behind the sticks,” Patullo said Tuesday. “That’s happened to us a few times. Then when you get in those ruts, you get kind of like, ‘OK, now we’ve got to do this to get out of it or we’re in a long yard situation.’

“We had a few of them happen the other night. We had an efficient run on first down, inefficient run on second down, and it put us in a third-and-long.

“We’ve got to eliminate those third-and-longs. Third-and-7-plus in the NFL is tough. The defense is dictating to you at that point.”

That’s how Mailata interpreted Johnson’s comments after the Giants loss when the right tackle called the run game “predictable.”

“I don’t think we’re predictable,” Mailata said. “I think we’re just not executing. That is the major part of the game right now that is probably … we’re just putting ourselves in predictable situations, meaning we’re just getting behind the sticks and we have to throw.

“Not many runs out of third down-and-6 and -7. They’re technically passing downs. So you get a defense that will pin their ears back and just shoot straight up field and that kind of [stinks].”

But Johnson did specifically call for more variety in the Eagles’ run game, namely attacking the perimeter more frequently. After all, Barkley is averaging 4.2 yards per carry outside of the tackles compared to 2.5 inside, according to Next Gen Stats.

It’s also worth noting that Hurts has just eight non-sneak designed runs this year, per Pro Football Focus, a trend that the quarterback said Wednesday is “just how the games have gone.” That rushing ability had previously been a boon to the Eagles throughout Hurts’ tenure as the starter.

Variety is one layer of the Eagles’ predictability. How can the Eagles also improve their execution on the ground, thus opening up opportunities in the passing game if defenses are selling out to stop the run? One of the major differences between Barkley’s rushing success last season and this is his yards before contact. Barkley is averaging 1.9 yards before contact per attempt, down from 3.9 a year ago.

Part of that shortcoming is on the offensive line, which has been down a healthy Dickerson at times as he has dealt with various injuries this season (heel, meniscus, back). The group also lost Mekhi Becton, a mauler in the run game, in free agency to the Los Angeles Chargers. But Will Shipley, the Eagles’ backup running back, suggested that their issues run deeper than personnel.

“I think that’s what makes football such a beautiful sport is that 10 guys can do their job perfectly and one of them doesn’t and the play looks like crap to everybody else,” Shipley said. “‘But we were 10 for 11!’ It’s not enough.

“[We’re] not just one block away, but one assignment away. Whether that’s getting the calls in early, getting out of the huddle earlier so that we have more time at the line of scrimmage for Cam [Jurgens] to ID and for us to make the calls that we need to make so that we get off to who we need to and that one little hole opens for [Barkley] to take it to the house.”

Mailata had also discussed a need for the Eagles to get to the line of scrimmage faster in the aftermath of the narrow Week 4 win over the Buccaneers. But on Wednesday, his primary concern was the overall lack of focus he has seen on film from the entire group at times throughout the season.

“Do your [bleeping] job,” Mailata said. “I’ve got to do my job. They’ve got to do their job. Everyone’s got to do their job, which is why, after the bye week that we had, little mini-bye week, that’s why I was like, ‘Just do your job. Don’t look at anything else. Just dominate your box and everything will take care of itself.’ If everyone could just do that, that’s the message. Dominate your job.”

The Eagles will have another opportunity to rediscover themselves in the run game on Sunday, when the Brian Flores-led Vikings defense awaits them at U.S. Bank Stadium. While the group leads the league in passing expected points added per play allowed (-.42), which measures the average points a defense gives up on a passing play, they’re much weaker against the run. The Vikings defense ranks No. 24 in the league in rushing EPA per play allowed (+.03).

It took time for the Eagles to establish an offensive identity rooted in the run game in both 2021 and 2024. Hurts didn’t seem surprised on Wednesday that the development of an identity is taking time again in 2025.

“I think how it’s been over the last four years given the changes that we’ve had, I mean, it’s a process in that,” Hurts said. “You navigate that throughout the beginning of the season a little bit. I think there is urgency. Obviously, I have urgency. There’s an eagerness to get pointed in the direction to just go out there and execute and play clean.”

With one third of the season down, though, the clock is ticking for the offense to come together.