The NFL is primed to open up passing offenses again. The Eagles’ new coordinator had better be ready.

There’s a lot of anxiety in the ether these days about the Eagles, particularly about the fact that they haven’t hired an offensive coordinator yet to replace Kevin Patullo.

Just look at some of the candidates who have been scooped up elsewhere or who decided to stay where they were: Mike McDaniel, Brian Daboll, Joe Brady, Mike Kafka, and Charlie Weis Jr.

We can call this group the “Guys We’ve Heard Of” group, and they’re the biggest drivers of this collective worry that the Eagles will end up hiring some nincompoop who can’t call plays or, worse, calls the same kinds of plays Patullo did. I don’t know much about McDaniel other than he digs capri pants and tinted sunglasses. But I recognize his name, which means he must be smart, and the Eagles must be stupid for not hiring him.

Then there’s the “Guys I’m Googling” group. They’re the up-and-coming coordinators and quarterback coaches who aren’t as well known to the casual NFL follower but who aspire to become branches on the Sean McVay tree or the Kyle Shanahan tree or whatever metaphorical foliage the Eagles happen to prefer. The way the Eagles’ search is shaping up — the time they’re taking, the three still-vacant head coaching jobs around the league — they’re likely to settle on someone from this group. Hiring such a candidate, one with relatively little experience and no discernible track record, could turn out to be a problem for the Eagles, who might end up with another play-caller who isn’t quite ready for the role.

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But it would be a boon for the team’s fans and media, who could start second-guessing and complaining about the guy as early as Week 1.

No matter who the Eagles bring on board, they would do well to take a big-picture factor into consideration when they make their choice. In the short term, sure, the new coordinator’s primary concerns will be centered on improving an offense that may or may not have A.J. Brown, may or may not have Lane Johnson, may or may not have a decent tight end or two, and could use a bounce-back season from Jalen Hurts. But in the longer term, they should be mindful that they’ve been part of a strategic shift across the NFL, and they should be prepared in case Roger Goodell and the league’s owners try to shift things back.

Here’s what I mean: During this regular season, the average NFL team passed for 209.7 yards a game. That figure represents the lowest such average since 2006. It has been two decades, in other words, since NFL passing offenses were as anemic (or as conservative, depending on how you want to look at it) as they were this season.

Why? You don’t have to be Bill Walsh to figure it out. After years of franchises chasing franchise quarterbacks and brilliant scheme designers and elite wide receivers — and tight ends who could catch and run like wideouts — a funny thing started happening: Certain teams geared up to counteract their opponents’ dynamic passing games and to exploit smaller, faster defenses. That is, certain teams won championships because of their defenses and/or their run games.

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The 2023 Kansas City Chiefs had Patrick Mahomes, yes, but they ranked 15th in scoring offense and second in scoring defense. The story of the 2024 Eagles is practically gospel around here: the dominance of Saquon Barkley and the offensive line, a stout defense overseen by Vic Fangio and built from the secondary in, the reality that the team didn’t want to and didn’t have to rely on Hurts’ arm to win.

Now we have the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl LX. Drake Maye had a great second season, and Sam Darnold is a great story. But both the Patriots’ and Seahawks’ defenses finished among the league’s top four in fewest points allowed and among the top eight in fewest yards allowed.

Simply put, the passing game — the aspect of football that leads to high scores, general excitement, and to the rise of the sport’s biggest celebrities and product-movers (i.e., star quarterbacks) — ain’t what it used to be. Hell, we were three points away from having a Super Bowl with Darnold and Jarrett Stidham as the starting QBs … not exactly an electrifying matchup of two all-time greats/household names.

For all the moaning that Sunday’s Patriots-Broncos game was boring and unwatchable because of the snow at Empower Stadium, for all the silly calls for holding conference-title games in domes from now on, the weather wasn’t what made it dull. What made it dull was that Maye played as if he was trying not to lose the game (sound familiar, Eagles fans?), and Stidham wasn’t capable of winning it.

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The last time the NFL went through a stretch similar to this one was a quarter-century ago, when four consecutive Super Bowls were won by teams primarily defense-oriented: the 2000 Baltimore Ravens, the 2001 and 2003 Patriots, and the 2002 Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Consider some of the quarterbacks, too, who were reaching those Super Bowls back then: Trent Dilfer, Kerry Collins, Brad Johnson, Rich Gannon, Jake Delhomme, and a rookie named Tom Brady.

In the aftermath of that ’03 Patriots run — Bill Belichick’s defensive backs manhandled the Indianapolis Colts’ receivers in the AFC title game — the NFL decided to crack down on illegal contact, defensive holding, and pass interference infractions. In 2003, NFL teams averaged 200.4 passing yards. In 2004, that average jumped by more than 10 yards, to 210.5, and it kept rising for years thereafter.

That surge has stopped. The game has slowed down, and it’s a safe bet that the NFL won’t allow it to stay this way for too much longer. The Eagles were among those applying the brakes, but the sport is poised to open up again, and they and their new man at the wheel, whoever he might be, need to be ready.