The Eagles need a new offensive coordinator. Could Kevin Patullo be next up?

*This story, originally published on Feb. 5, has been updated to reflect that Kellen Moore has been hired by the New Orleans Saints.

NEW ORLEANS — Nick Sirianni and Kevin Patullo’s relationship got its start, ironically, via the team that the Eagles head coach and his associate head coach/passing game coordinator beat in Sunday’s Super Bowl, the Kansas City Chiefs. Patullo was on his way out as an offensive quality control coach when Herm Edwards was fired following a 2-14 season in 2008. And when Todd Haley was hired as the Chiefs’ head coach, Nick Sirianni was Patullo’s replacement.

Offensive coordinator Chan Gailey was retained by Haley, however, and so when Sirianni occasionally had questions for his new coordinator, Gailey would tell him: “Call Kevin, he’ll tell you how to do everything.”

Sirianni and Patullo had never worked together, and never met in person, but a relationship that is still going strong 16 years later got its start on phone calls and in text messages as Sirianni navigated his first NFL gig. They finally linked up on the same staff in 2018, when Sirianni, hired to be the offensive coordinator in Indianapolis, called Patullo and this time wasn’t looking to ask him where a file was in the facility. He was asking Patullo to be his wide receivers coach.

Seven years later, Sirianni and Patullo did what they couldn’t do two seasons ago and beat the Chiefs in the Super Bowl. Patullo has been the team’s pass game coordinator since he followed Sirianni to Philadelphia in 2021. He got a title bump in 2023 to associate head coach.

Next stop: offensive coordinator?

The Eagles will need a replacement for Kellen Moore, who as expected was officially hired as head coach of the New Orleans Saints on Tuesday.

Any list of candidates for Moore’s successor is sure to include Patullo, who despite being Sirianni’s friend and right-hand man on the staff did not interview — at least not publicly — for Moore’s job or for the same opening a year prior, when the Eagles hired Brian Johnson to replace Shane Steichen.

On Wednesday, the 43-year-old Patullo described his role with the Eagles as “half head coach, half offensive coordinator.” But a full role as offensive coordinator here or elsewhere is on his wish list, and he’d like to finally be a primary play-caller.

“Anything that I can do to continue to grow would be good for me as a person, as a coach,” Patullo said. “The role I’m in now has been good, too, because I get to do both essentially. I’m looking forward to whatever happens. I’m not particular in what it needs to be. It’ll take its path the way it’s supposed to go. I’ve been doing this for a long time. I think this is my 16th year in the NFL or whatever it is, maybe more, and it always works out the way it’s supposed to.”

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Patullo, rather, said he helped Sirianni interview Moore last offseason. The Eagles’ collapse last season happened in part because an offensive scheme with too much of Sirianni’s fingerprints on it had gone stale, the head coach said, and so Patullo was probably not a real target.

The process, though, from interviewing Moore to bringing him on staff to spending the offseason and OTAs and training camp implementing and merging new ideas was a unique one, Patullo said.

“You don’t get to learn new things always as a coach when you’re at the same place every year,” he said. “It was almost like we were clinic-ing each other on stuff and so we got to go through things and see what fits best.”

It wasn’t smooth. It took a few games to figure out, Patullo said. It’s well-established how critical the Eagles’ Week 5 bye-week reset was. Sirianni, Patullo, Moore, and Jalen Hurts spent a lot of time evaluating things. Others in the building had sway, including the group of offensive linemen who implored the team to run the football more frequently.

“We all were kind of able to look at it,” Patullo said. “You don’t know. When you’re in it, you’re just going. It was kind of a good moment for us to sit back and look at it, evaluate what actually we were doing and where we wanted to go from here.”

Baby steps followed, Patullo said. The offense, mostly thanks to a running game powered by Saquon Barkley and the offensive line, finally clicked. The Eagles had the eighth-best offense in football by yards per game. But their passing game? It had ebbs and flows and came under a microscope at times. It ranked 29th in the NFL mostly because the Eagles rarely needed to throw in the second half. The Eagles have brushed aside criticisms of their passing game, saying they will do whatever it takes to win a given game.

While Patullo’s title is the head of that sometimes stagnant passing game, he said that his hands have touched every component of the offense, including passing, running, the run-pass option game, situational stuff. Moore said earlier in the year that he spends a lot of time each week with Patullo getting the call sheet ready before every game.

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Some of the same reasons that make Patullo a candidate to be the next coordinator are also reasons why critics might wince. Didn’t things work better this year after Sirianni ceded control of the offense? Hasn’t Patullo been too close to his friend to have a different enough perspective?

Patullo said it was unfair to characterize him as an extension of Sirianni.

“If you were in and around us you would definitely see that we’re not the same,” he said. “We work because we don’t see it the same way, which is good.”

Sirianni, Patullo said, is someone he wants to stay attached to in this league.

“I’ve learned so much from him and I think the best part of it is we do get to play off each other because we challenge each other in different ways and we are a little bit different, the way we think,” Patullo said.

The coordinator and play-calling job with the Eagles is a bit unique. There’s a longtime offensive line coach, Jeff Stoutland, who coordinates the running game and has a lot of thoughts. There’s a franchise quarterback, Hurts, who will share his own ideas. Moore’s departure means Hurts will have his 12th play-caller in 10 seasons. But Patullo said the collaborative nature and familiarity of the room is a plus. He worked with tight ends coach Jason Michael in Tennessee and Indianapolis. He briefly worked with wide receivers coach Aaron Moorehead at Texas A&M.

“I don’t care what your title is, my title, we’re all working together and you welcome every idea,” he said. “That’s what gets you to points like this because you kind of have to put your ego aside and say, ‘We’re doing this together.’”

Asked “hypothetically” what would make Patullo a good offensive coordinator, Stoutland said: “I don’t like hypotheticals, but I love Kevin Patullo. I can tell you that, and I think that he’s a great organizer and a great football mind.

“He’s always had input. He’s always had a lot of input.”

Time will tell, of course, where it all goes. The Eagles will have plenty of talented external candidates — and others internally — to replace Moore.

As for Patullo, the media obligations of Super Bowl week offered a rare chance for him to be an outward face for the Eagles despite the obvious nature of his importance inside the building. Take away the time in 2021 when Sirianni had COVID and Patullo was slated to step in as coach, and Patullo has rarely been a guy with a high public profile.

“Obviously I could do that if I wanted to, but that’s not who I am,” he said. “I’m just going to do what I need to do to win, whatever the team needs me to do. I’m not really worried about that. It’ll take its course whenever it’s supposed to be. I’m not going to be one to promote myself and kind of get out there and say, ‘Look what I’m doing.’ People will find out. Most of my peers know around the league and that’s all that matters to me. The building knows what I do and what we need to do, so I’m pretty good.”

The relationship that started 16 years ago on the phone will have its share of tests in the future, either during a potential interview process or if Patullo indeed becomes Sirianni’s offensive coordinator down the road. Years of friendship and a professional life together will come in handy, Patullo thinks.

“That’s why I am who I am today, because I’m honest with him and he’s honest with me, and I appreciate that because I don’t think a lot of people are,” Patullo said. “You can coach for a long time and people won’t tell you what you need to work on or what you’re good at. Sometimes you don’t know that until it’s too late.

“It’ll work out the way it’s supposed to.”