Nick Sirianni regains control of Eagles staff, promotes Kevin Patullo to OC, hires another former underling

“See this guy?” Nick Sirianni asked me as he exited the coaches’ offices at Lincoln Financial Field after a big Eagles win this season. Sirianni had a lean, swarthy fellow in a hug that was more like a headlock. Both were smiling like maniacs. “See this guy? This is a star!”

That guy was Kevin Patullo.

For better or worse, after a year on probation, Sirianni is back in the saddle again.

With the Super Bowl LIX title on his resumé, Sirianni on Wednesday promoted his longtime majordomo, associate head coach and passing game coordinator Kevin Patullo, from those rather amorphous positions. Patullo now is the offensive coordinator. Good luck telling them apart from a glance or at a distance. Both are tall, former college wide receivers with short hair and faux beards. Also, both are 43; Sirianni is about one month older than Patullo.

Both are seven years older than Kellen Moore, the former Eagles OC who last week became the head coach in New Orleans. Moore took Eagles quarterbacks coach Doug Nussmeier with him to serve as his offensive coordinator.

The Eagles say they complied with Rooney Rule requirements to interview at least two minority and/or female candidates for the vacancy, but did not immediately supply names. A league source two weeks ago said the Eagles were not interested in hiring former Eagles OC Frank Reich, who also was Sirianni’s boss in Indianapolis; at least, not for the coordinator’s job. However, the Eagles might consider adding Reich as an adviser.

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Sirianni reportedly also hired Dolphins offensive assistant Parks Frazier to replace Patullo as passing game coordinator. Frazier coached under Sirianni with the Colts.

Consider it a flex.

This time last year, after a late-season collapse, a playoff blowout, and a series of embarrassing incidents on the sideline and during interactions with fans, Sirianni was just campaigning to keep his job. It didn’t help that he’d hired badly after a run to the Super Bowl in 2022, which resulted in the regression of franchise quarterback Jalen Hurts and one of the worst defenses in Eagles history.

Today, he has reasserted control of his staff.

To be fair, it had been a strength.

When the Eagles hired Sirianni as their head coach in 2021, he was an unknown, lightly regarded offensive coordinator in Indianapolis who didn’t even get an interview with any other teams. However, owner Jeffrey Lurie was smitten by Sirianni’s knowledge of the league as much as his knowledge of the game — one of the weaknesses of Sirianni’s predecessor, Doug Pederson.

Like Andy Reid, Sirianni was a well-connected networker with tendrils reaching throughout the NFL and college coaching ranks. Lurie and GM Howie Roseman were delighted with Sirianni’s first choices as coordinators: Jonathan Gannon, a fast-rising defensive mind from the Colts’ staff, and Shane Steichen, the Chargers’ quarterbacks coach when Sirianni was their wide receivers coach.

Significantly, according to a former Eagles coach, all three agreed that Florida offensive coordinator Brian Johnson would be the perfect fit as Hurts’ position coach. Lurie is a champion of minority hiring, Roseman is a Florida alumnus, and Sirianni reckoned that Johnson’s preexisting relationship with Hurts would only help; Hurts’ father was an assistant coach on Johnson’s high school team, and Johnson recruited Hurts when he became a college coach.

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After Sirianni lost both coordinators to head coaching jobs, all three — Lurie, Roseman, and Sirianni — did not necessarily agree on their replacements. Sirianni insisted on Sean Desai as Gannon’s replacement on defense. Sirianni acquiesced to Lurie’s preference that Johnson, not Patullo, would replace Steichen.

Sirianni had given up play-calling responsibilities seven games into the 2021 season and, according to Eagles sources no longer with the team, was eager to reinsert himself more fully into game-planning and, occasionally, into play-calling.

From there, things went horribly wrong.

Sirianni was forced to demote Desai after Game 14, and his replacement, defensive adviser Matt Patricia, was even worse. Johnson, undermined at times by Hurts, who occasionally would go off-script, took heat for the sort of unimaginative schemes and play-calling that originally cost Sirianni play-calling autonomy in 2021. Desai, Patricia, and Johnson were fired after the 2023 season.

Sirianni was not, partially because he accepted a lesser role.

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Lurie had long coveted veteran defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, an Eagles defensive adviser in 2022 who parted ways with the Dolphins as DC after the 2023 season. Lurie also loved Moore, who’d helped develop Dak Prescott in Dallas before being scapegoated by head coach Mike McCarthy, who fired Moore after the 2022 season. Moore spent 2023 as the OC for the Chargers, to the benefit of quarterback Justin Herbert, before new head coach Jim Harbuagh cleaned house and made Moore available.

Lurie and Roseman scooped up both of them last winter.

Lurie and Roseman also made it clear that Sirianni’s responsibilities would be diminished.

The offense belonged to Moore. The defense belonged to Fangio.

The press conferences belonged to Nick.

Fast-forward 12 months. Sirianni has reascended. He’s got one year remaining on a $7 million-a-year contract that will at least double, if not triple, when an expected three-year extension is agreed upon.

Fangio remains, and will be untouched.

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Can the same be said about the Eagles’ offense?

The Eagles say Patullo will call the plays, but mightn’t Sirianni be bolder in disagreeing with a longtime lieutenant like Patullo than with a self-made man like Moore?

Also, how much of Moore’s influence will remain? Again, to be fair, while the offense was good enough to win a title, and good enough to make Saquon Barkley the most productive single-season rusher in NFL history (including playoffs), the passing game ranked 29th among the 32 NFL teams. Which is to say, efficiency does not equal prolificness.

After all, Patullo and Sirianni now have been joined at the hip for the past seven years. The new guy, Frazier, was a low-level assistant from 2018-20 under Sirianni with the Colts.

Who knows? This all could work out great. But however it works out, understand this:

Nick Sirianni is back in charge.