PHILADELPHIA — Eagles left tackle Jordan Mailata turned the tables and posited a question to reporters in the locker room following Sunday’s 23-19 home playoff loss to the San Francisco 49ers.
“If there are multiple players saying that, why don’t you believe us?”
What the players were saying, from Mailata to wide receiver DeVonta Smith to running back Saquon Barkley and on down the line, was that execution was the primary culprit for the team’s offensive inefficiencies this season. That it was the players, not the plays, that were largely responsible for the defending champ’s downfall.
Externally, the finger-pointing has begun in earnest, and much of it is in the direction of first-year offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo. His elevation to the post after Kellen Moore left to become head coach of the New Orleans Saints was the only major change for a Pro Bowl-rich unit that finished second in rushing last season and clicked into high gear in the playoffs, with the Eagles posting 95 points over their final two games to capture the Lombardi Trophy in runaway fashion.
Scoring dropped from 27.2 (ranked 7th) to 22.3 (19th) points per game this season, offensive efficiency dipped from fourth best in the league to 19th, and the rushing attack plummeted from averaging 179 yards per game to 116.9 (18th).
Removing Patullo from the equation, the thinking goes, will get the operation back on track. But really, Mailata said, that’s just an argument of convenience.
“I’ll say it like this: It’s easier to blame somebody who gets paid less than your starting people,” he said. “Everybody knows that. Everyone in this f—ing locker room, even you guys know that. But the story makes better sense if you’re pointing at somebody else and not the player.”
If you remove a single scapegoat, the questions get harder.
How could the most expensive offense in football look so pedestrian?
Was the regression along the offensive line a matter of attrition following a long 2024 season, or do the issues run deeper?
What is the ceiling for this offense under quarterback Jalen Hurts when the ground game isn’t dominating?
There is no doubt the coaching, led by Nick Sirianni and Patullo, could have been better. An NFC scout noted the seeming lack of connectivity in the game plans, calling it a “hodgepodge of plays.”
“There’s no flow to the offense,” the scout said. “No rhythm.”
Multiple players, though, including Barkley, noted that the scheme really didn’t change between 2024 and ’25.
“I know it was a new offensive coordinator and new guys, but we kind of stuck with the same script, to be honest, of what we did last year,” Barkley said.
“Everybody runs the same thing in this league, you just dress it up differently, that’s just the truth. Inside zone is inside zone, outside zone is outside zone. The difference is in this offense, it might be called Smoke and in another offense it might be called Spider. We all steal from each other. … At the end of the day, we just didn’t make enough plays.”
Evaluations are underway and it is fair to anticipate changes in Philadelphia following a flameout in ’25 that fell well short of lofty expectations.
When that’s done, the Eagles will have to confront the fact that the scheme, originally designed by Sirianni, remains in place and might need an overhaul; that Hurts, the reigning Super Bowl MVP, took a significant step backward and didn’t thrive in less-than-ideal conditions; and that a host of highly paid players, including some in the back end of their primes, didn’t shine as brightly as they once did.
“I feel like [Patullo] did a great job, man,” said Smith. “A lot of the stuff is on us as players.
“It works hand-in-hand. We have to all pick each other up. We have to pick him up, he has to pick us up. I feel like he called it great the whole year. Offensively, we just didn’t execute well.”
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