With Mike McDaniel and Kliff Kingsbury looming, Kevin Patullo needs to have himself a big postseason

With all due respect to Ralph Waldo Emerson, a door can be a wall sometimes, too.

Take poor Kevin Patullo, for instance.

The goal of every NFL assistant on either side of the football is to eventually land a coordinator gig. It can be a tough slog. In addition to the long hours and relative anonymity, a position coach must contend with the weight of the knowledge that his fate is only partially within his control. There are a lot of positions on a football team, and only so many ways to distinguish oneself from his peers. At times, a promotion to play-calling duties can feel more like a function of internal politics and personal relationships than good old-fashioned gridiron merit.

Last February, after climbing the coaching ranks for two decades, Patullo finally got his chance to hold the laminated play sheet and talk into the magic microphone. Two of the last three men to hold the position with the Eagles had landed head coaching gigs within a year. His door had finally opened. All Patullo had to do now was repeat as Super Bowl champion and make sure a historically great running game didn’t take a step backward despite a short offseason and a tougher schedule and another year of age tacked on to a veteran core that had remained uniquely healthy in 2024.

I’ll pause here to acknowledge the counterargument from Eagles fans.

Boooooooooooooooo!

Point taken. I’m not trying to paint Patullo as Gavroche in a headset. But I do wonder sometimes if he feels a little bit like Wile E. Coyote trying to run through a tunnel.

The Eagles offense took a lot of well-deserved heat during the regular season. Patullo has overseen a unit that fell from seventh in the league in scoring under Kellen Moore in 2024 with 463 points to 19th with 379 points. The Eagles likewise saw a significant drop in total yards, from eighth in the NFL to 24th, and yards per play, from 11th to 22nd. But the numbers also say that the bulk of the decline in overall production is attributable to something other than the passing concepts that have become the rage bait of choice of every amateur internet film sleuth with an NFL+ subscription. The Eagles offensive line was unsustainably dominant last season. This year, that dominance has not been sustained.

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You can see it with your eyes. The numbers will back them up. Last season, Eagles rushers averaged 3.2 yards before contact, as good of a common statistical measure as there is for judging run-blocking. This year, they have averaged 2.6 yards. The difference between those two numbers is basically the difference between their overall yards-per-carry average last season and this year. They averaged 1.7 yards after contact in 2024, and 1.6 yards after contact in 2025.

Once can certainly argue that the selection and sequencing of plays can have an impact on an offensive line’s ability to block. One can also argue that the best coordinators are counterpunchers. What worked for a team last year, against last year’s opponents, may require adaptation in order to fit the present reality. But one can’t argue that the best coordinators can turn Fred Johnson into Lane Johnson, or Tyler Steen into Mekhi Becton. Nor can they fix whatever physical ailments have limited players like Landon Dickerson and Cam Jurgens.

Patullo certainly has a role in overcoming these things. I’m just not convinced that this year’s offense would look any different if Moore had remained at coordinator.

The pertinent question for Patullo and the Eagles now is what the offense will look like moving forward. This is a weird time of year. Sunday’s wild-card game against the 49ers could be the start of a month of football that leaves us memory-holing our four months of angst. Or, it could be the start of the offseason, and a litany of questions that sound way closer to January 2024 than January 2025.

The 49ers are something of a fresh start for Patullo. A new opportunity. The offensive line is rested. Lane Johnson is expected to be back. The Eagles have essentially had two weeks to prepare for the playoffs after their conscious mailing-in of Week 18. The opponent is ripe for a statement. The 49ers defense is a legacy unit that right now looks a lot closer to Hewlett Packard than Apple.

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The Niners are a lot worse than even those of us who know how bad they’ve been probably realize. They finished the regular season with one of the NFL’s 10 worst defenses in yards per play (5.6, 22nd), net yards per pass attempt (6.5, 23rd) and turnover percentage (8.4, 23rd). The overall numbers looked good in Week 18 against the Seahawks, but Seattle punted once and twice had the ball inside the 10-yard-line and walked away with no points. All told the Seahawks left at least nine points and more accurately closer to 13 on the field. This, in a game when they only really had seven possessions.

Over the last four weeks, the 49ers have allowed 138 yards on 17 carries to Tony Pollard and Tyjae Spears, 92 on 17 to D’Andre Swift and Kyle Monangai, and 171 on 33 to Kenneth Walker and Zach Charbonnet. Bryce Huff is starting for them. Enough said.

Patullo needs this one.

Potential replacements are no doubt keeping a keen eye. Mike McDaniel, the former 49ers offensive coordinator recently fired by the Dolphins, is one of the best run-game schemers in the league. Since he arrived in Miami in 2022, the Dolphins rank sixth in the NFL rushing average at 4.5 yards per attempt. Kliff Kingsbury, who recently parted ways with the Commanders, led an offense that ranked third in the NFL in yards per carry in his two seasons at the helm. That includes 5.4 yards per attempt this year, despite missing Jayden Daniels for much of it.

The Eagles moved decisively at the coordinator position in 2023. With four losses in their last seven regular-season games and a wild-card loss, 2025 would look different only in the level of drama that accompanied a late-season swoon.

The Eagles are better than the 49ers. They need to be a team that scores plenty of points against this sort of opponent, in this sort of situation. This is a time of year when the scoreboard matters much more than individual coaching careers. Sunday will matter for both.