Why the Eagles Won’t Repeat in 2025
Before you read any further here, I feel obligated to point out that no one – on the air or in local taverns – was more wrong about last year’s Eagles than I was. I predicted five wins for a team that won the Super Bowl.
In other words, I could be wrong.
Spectacularly wrong.
But I have gotten lots of predictions right over the years, too, and I have a very strong feeling that I’m seeing what many media people – rose-colored glasses firmly in place – aren’t even mentioning as the Birds get ready to open training camp later this month.
Yes, the defense lost half of its starters in the offseason and yes, it’s hard to imagine Saquon Barkley replicating his historic 2024 season. Those are the reasons most often cited for an inevitable decline after the magic of last year.
There is a much more obvious issue. It even has a name. Kevin Patullo.
For reasons that strain basic logic, the Eagles brain trust decided to give head coach Nick Sirianni the authority to hire his own offensive coordinator after the mastermind of the 2024 juggernaut, Kellen Moore, left to take over as head coach in New Orleans.
Remember, owner Jeff Lurie and GM Howie Roseman did not offer the same opportunity to the only other Eagles coach ever to win a Super Bowl, Doug Pederson, five years ago. They rejected the idea of Doug promoting his own guy, Press Taylor, to oversee the offense. When the coach tried to force the issue, they fired him.
History shows the bosses were right that time. Taylor was a bust as Pederson’s top aide in Jacksonville, proving once again that hiring the coach’s best buddy usually isn’t the smartest route to success.
Ironically, Lurie and Roseman saw the same losing scenario unfold two years ago when they allowed Sirianni to promote Brian Johnson to the OC job after Shane Steichen got the top coaching job in Indianapolis. Johnson’s failure was so spectacular, they stepped in last year and hired Moore themselves.
Maybe that beer can conking off Howie’s head at the parade gave him temporary amnesia. Why else would he allow a plan that had already failed once to happen again? What made the bosses think Sirianni’s longtime bobo would be able to simulate the brilliant work of Moore?
My prediction here is, he won’t. My educated guess is, a year from now, Patullo will be the latest reminder of the shortcomings of Sirianni, whose two trips to the Super Bowl in three years have created an aura of genius.
I know what you’re thinking. No two coaches are alike. Just because Johnson sucked as an OC doesn’t mean Patullo cannot be a roaring success. True. He could be. But recent history suggests that putting Sirianni closer to the one thing he has acknowledged he is not great at, play-calling, is a step in the wrong direction.
When the 2023 Eagles went into freefall, losing six of their last seven games, it is no secret that Sirianni took back some of the control of the play-calling toward the end of that season, with disastrous results. The lesson then was that Nick may be good at the culture of a team, but he is far from a Bill Walsh when it comes to Xs and Os.
So what are Patullo’s qualifications to take over for Moore? Uh, well, huh, . . . . he’s really close to Sirianni. That’s about it. He has no track record of doing anything above position coach on his resume, unless you’re impressed by the titles quality control assistant, senior offensive analyst or passing game coordinator.
No, Patullo’s main credential is a relationship with Sirianni that goes back to their days in 2018 when they were both assistants in Indy. They are BFFs.
One of Sirianni’s first hires after he shocked the world by getting the Eagles job was bringing in Patullo as the passing game coordinator under Steichen in 2021. Since then, Patullo has served behind the scenes, earning the commendation by Nick as the “unsung hero” of last season.
“There’s not one decision that I’ve ever made in the building without Kevin Patullo,” Sirianni said when he named his buddy the new OC.
Hmmm. Does that include the decision to promote Johnson to the coordinator’s job two years ago? If Patullo is so brilliant, why didn’t Sirianni turn to him when Johnson went belly-up? (The coach did demote his equally inept DC, Sean Desai, toward the end of that season.)
Let’s get to the bottom line here. Patullo is the OC because of his friendship with Sirianni. There are two things very wrong with this decision. One is, there was no real search for the best candidate, the way there had been when the Birds found Moore. And two, if Patullo falters like Johnson, guess who’s back in charge of the offense.
One thing I learned in my 33 years at WIP was to anticipate problems. I observed many times how quickly friends in sports become enemies once they exploit their relationship for a big promotion. People who never held a job often aren’t very good at it, especially right away. What then?
Something tells me the name Kevin Patullo is going to become much more familiar to fans very early in the new season.
And not in a good way.
Some other things that are bothering me right now:
- Is Rob Thomson ever going to be held accountable for making one dumb decision after another? He put the Phillies game in San Diego on Saturday night in the hands of awful reliever Jordan Romano again, with predictable results. When you, as a fan, know disaster is about to happen, shouldn’t the manager have the same instinct?
- The All-Star Game is this week, so I would like to propose a name change. Because so many top players (including Zack Wheeler) back out of appearing so often now, shouldn’t they call it the Some-Star Game?
- The Sixers sure do know how to drum up excitement, don’t they? Now that top draft pick V.J. Edgecombe is out with a thumb injury, how many top rookies, going all the way to Joel Embiid, have either gotten hurt as soon as they joined the team, or were injured even before that?
- The biggest reason the Flyers won two championships in the 1970s was a goalie named Bernie Parent. So why, all of these years later, have they forgotten that simple fact? GM Danny Briere had nine picks in the NHL draft this month. He picked zero goalies. None. That’s stupid.
- Sixers GM Daryl Morey held a news conference in Las Vegas last week. I offer this information for two reasons. First, he talks publicly very rarely, and you may have missed it. And second, if you did try to watch it, you probably fell asleep. Either way, I can assure you that you missed nothing.