Under Kevin Patullo, the Eagles should plan for the same offense but prepare to be different

You can get in a lot of trouble trying to outsmart yourself. You can get in almost as much trouble by staying complacent. Enter Kevin Patullo, whose first task as Eagles offensive coordinator is to untangle that paradox. His success in doing so will determine whether the job he has just landed is the best one in the world or the worst.

There are two schools of thought that have emerged in the wake of the Eagles’ dominant Super Bowl LIX win over the Chiefs.

The error lies in the notion that these two things are mutually exclusive. All we really need to do is rephrase them slightly.

Earlier this week, Patullo sounded like a man who understands one of the fundamental truths of the NFL. You stick with what works until it doesn’t, and then you find something else that does.

» READ MORE: New Eagles offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo wants to ‘expand’ on player-driven system already in place

It doesn’t need to be any more complicated than that. Those of us who don’t have NovaCare Complex key fobs tend to imagine coordinators as one of the witches in Macbeth, his playbook a boiling cauldron of mewing cats and whining hedgepigs that reveals his personal interpretation of how to turn X’s and O’s into wins. Frankly, there are some coordinators who come across as if they believe that about themselves. They are the ones you don’t want to hire.

Patullo? He is a Nick Sirianni acolyte, which means there is a pretty good chance that he views football as an endeavor whose complexities are variations on a simple theme. Figure out what your players do well, and put them in as good of a position to do those things as the in-game situation will allow.

“I mean as far as different, we go through the process at the end of each year of examining what we do well, what we need to improve upon, and then really any trends or anything we see that we can add to it,” Patullo said when he met the media during the Eagles’ first organized team activity of the offseason. “I think really when you say different, I think it’s going to be like what do our players do best, like it [has] been. And then from there we just expand upon it. Hey, we’re really good at this. Let’s bring this to the table and try this and see where we can take it.”

As for specifics? That’s on us to fill in the blanks. The month of May is a really bad time to try to figure out what an NFL offense is going to look like in the autumn. That’s especially true if you are looking for clues in a news conference.

While we don’t know much about Patullo’s aptitude as a play-caller, he has already mastered one of the universal demands of the job. Listen thoughtfully to the questions, and give nothing away in response.

One noteworthy phrase that Patullo invoked on a few different occasions: problem-solving.

“When [the players are] out there playing, they’re problem-solving ultimately,” he said. “You don’t always know what you’re going to get as an offense.”

» READ MORE: What makes the Eagles’ Nick Sirianni such a good coach? It’s there if you are willing to look.

On a meta level, the Eagles have two big potential problems they could encounter in 2025. One, they might not be able to count on Saquon Barkley for 345 carries. Two, if they aren’t, they might not be able to get away with throwing the ball a league-low 448 times.

Two numbers that don’t get enough attention when people discuss the Eagles passing offense.

It won’t surprise anybody to learn that both of those numbers are extremely low. Great teams don’t spend a lot of time trailing by more than a touchdown. The Eagles were a great team. The greatest, in fact.

Even in that context, the numbers are low. The Lions went 15-2 but still ran 135 plays while trailing by more than eight points. The Chiefs went 15-2 but had four games in which they trailed by two-plus possessions. They ran 97 plays in those four games. Only the Vikings spent less time in a catch-up game script.

If the Eagles are lucky, none of this will matter. Barkley and the offensive line will remain healthy. The defense will remain dominant. The opponents on their schedule will remain overmatched. If all of that happens, then the Eagles offense won’t need to look any different than it did in 2024. Run it left. Run it right. Run it back again. Every now and then, find A.J. Brown on a slant or DeVonta Smith in the scramble drill. Clear another spot in the trophy case for a silver football mounted atop a silver concave stand.

Patullo and Sirianni are smart enough to know the odds of everything playing out the way it did last season. And they are smart enough to spend their offseason fine-tuning contingency plans.

There is a good chance the Eagles’ offense is going to need to be a little more wide-open this season. The schedule is brutal, full of top-of-the-line quarterbacks who can put up points against the stoutest of defenses. Barkley is another year older, at a position where even the most durable of running backs are liable to stretches where they aren’t 100%. Patullo’s fellow coaches have had an entire offseason to game plan.

» READ MORE: Dallas Goedert ‘stoked’ to still be with Eagles after uncomfortable offseason

The odds say that the fate of the 2025 Eagles — and of Patullo’s inaugural run as NFL coordinator — will come down to how they manage to solve the problems that arise.

Two things we can all agree upon: