Jan. 12, 2026
The 2025 season came down to one last play, one final decision by novice offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo that could redeem him from four months of bad choices.
After calling a timeout with 43 seconds left, 4th and 11 from the SF 21-yard line, Nick Sirianni met near the sideline with Jalen Hurts and Patullo. To my utter shock, the play-caller was doing most of the talking. For reasons that defy explanation, the guy who ruined the season would be making the final call.
Eventually, after Patullo spouted out his latest nonsense, the head coach nodded, and the quarterback smirked. If you could read expressions, you already knew the season was over.
Sure enough, Patullo called a play devoid of all deception, four receivers running toward the goal line, with no scheme designed in any way to deceive the pass coverage. It was the fourth time on the final 11-play drive that Patullo called the same play.
Resigned to his fate, Hurts threw a rainbow into triple coverage. The ball bounced off linebacker Eric Kendrick’s hands and landed on the ground.
Goodbye season.
Goodbye Patullo.
The full impact of that unfathomable loss will take months to process, so let’s stick with the play that ex-Eagle Jason Avant called “a microcosm of the season” during the post-game show on NBC Sports Philadelphia.
Indeed, it was. Thanks to an offense brimming with talent and a new offensive scheme that exploited none of it, the Eagles survived all season only because of a defense that made the big plays, in the big moments, all the way to an 11-5 record.
I’m not including the final game because Sirianni basically forfeited it to Washington by resting most of his starters.
The coach said rest was more important.
How did that work out for him?
Anyway, despite the offensive shortcomings all season, the Birds were favored to win at home because the Niners were missing half of their team to injury. Out were starters Brandon Aiyuk, Ricky Pearsall, Fred Warner, Nick Bosa, Mykel Williams, Dee Winters and – before halftime on Sunday – safety Ji’Ayir Brown and future Hall of Fame TE George Kittle.
The Eagles had to survive without Lane Johnson. That’s it. Just one starter. And they couldn’t do it.
In fact, the hero who swatted away the final pass, Kendricks, was not on the SF roster until right after Thanksgiving, when he agreed to leave his couch because the Niners had run out of linebackers.
After the loss, the crowd at Lincoln Financial Field booed the ex-champs lustily, and we will all just have to speculate what the architect of the best NFL roster, GM Howie Roseman, was thinking at the time.
Teams often underachieve after a championship parade, but not like this. Not when the problem is painfully obvious. Not when one ridiculous personnel decision led to an entire season of bewilderment and disappointment.
Sirianni all but acknowledged one of the worst hires in the history of Philadelphia sports – unwittingly, of course – when he said after the game that “it all starts with me.”
Finally, we all agree. In 2023, the coach hired his buddy, Brian Johnson, to replace Shane Steichen as OC. Disaster ensued. Then after the 2024 OC, Kellen Moore, got a head job, Sirianni went back to a failed formula and promoted his bobo Patullo to take over the play-calling. This was an even bigger nightmare.
Why? Why did the Roseman and owner Jeff Lurie pave the way to a championship by hiring an offensive guru in Moore, but then let Sirianni have his way with another unproven coordinator one season later?
Until we get some answers to those questions, let’s consider the fates of the main characters in this bizarre season, I’m basing this on the habits of Lurie and Roseman over the past three decades.
Sirianni is safe, unfortunately. He has too much equity after the championship last season. But please don’t preach to me anymore about his brilliance with the culture of the team. No master of culture has to be separated from one of his star players the way Sirianni was from A.J. Brown on the sideline during the biggest game of the season. The coach is a hothead. Not to mention laughably overrated.
Patullo is gone, fortunately. Sirianni may find a place to hide his unemployable friend somewhere in the organization, but the next play the OC calls will be when he’s running a high-school team somewhere. (No doubt he will be outcoached then, too.)
Hurts isn’t going anywhere, but his reputation is definitely trending downward. He will be dealing with his eighth new play-caller next season, but now it’s fair to wonder why he didn’t find a way to overcome Patullo this season. By the end, it seemed as if the veteran QB was resigned to his fate. That pitiful last play was proof of his surrender.
Eleven months ago, Philadelphia held a parade to honor one of its best teams ever, the 2024 Eagles. It was a party that rivaled our first after a Super-Bowl win seven years earlier. The way it ended last season with a blowout win against Andy Reid, Patrick Mahomes and the reigning Kansas City Chiefs was magical.
Were the Eagles starting a dynasty?
Were the Eagles so gifted, anyone could call the plays?
Was Nick Sirianni the second coming of Vince Lombardi?
Now we know the answers: No, no, and no.
All it took was the insane decision to hand our Rolls Royce over to a student driver.
From that point on, the crash was inevitable.
Kevin Patullo is a name that will live in infamy in Philadelphia.
He is the new standard by which all terrible coaches will be measured here.
Rich Kotite can finally rest in peace.
Idle thoughts after 15 hours of playoff football. . . .
- By accident, I watched a few minutes of the Fox pregame show before Saturday’s early game. It still stinks. But it did occur to me that nothing at all has been said about the absence of Jimmy Johnson after 25 years (in two separate stints) on that show. Did he add so little in those years that no one even realizes he’s been gone? (Yes).
- And when someone finally puts Bill Cowher out of his (and our) misery and sends him out to pasture from the NFL Today on CBS (he is in his 19thseason), the same will be said – nothing. It always amazes me when a great coach gives up his life calling for mediocrity (or worse) in broadcasting.
- This newfangled strategy of going for it on fourth down has gotten out of control, don’t you think? The coach of the Panthers, Dave Canales, went for it on his very first possession Saturday, fourth and four, from his own 45-yard line, leading to an early lead by the Rams. Then, later that day, Bears coach Ben Johnson went for it, fourth and five from his own 32, late in the second quarter against the Packers. It failed. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
- Is it just me or are pass-catchers making plays this season like never before? One-handed grabs are commonplace now. So are gravity-defying ballet moves near the sideline. And that game-winning catch by Rams TE Colby Parkinson is beyond description. Amid all of the pointless blabber from ex-TE Greg Olsen, why doesn’t the Fox analyst try explaining the evolution of pass-catching? Is he afraid he will finally say something interesting?
- As far as I can tell, I was the only media person in Philadelphia who predicted a loss in the wild-card game on Sunday. My reasoning was simple. The Eagles had better players, but the Niners had better coaches. What amazed me all week was that none of the prominent media people saw this loss coming. Are they not too bright? Or are they all cheerleaders now? The correct answer is the latter. Where have you gone, Stan Hochman?