The Eagles offense has been incredibly inconsistent through the first four games, and offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo claims part of that is due to the tough defenses they’ve faced early in the year. He notes that it’s a good problem to have because they’re able to identify issues now, instead of learning certain lessons late in the season.
He spoke to reporters on Tuesday, and when asked specifically what the issues were the second half against the Buccaneers, Patullo said a lot of words and didn’t
really offer a specific answer to the question.
“So, the second half — when you look at the game as a whole, we started off the game the way we wanted to. We had good pace, good rhythm, we got it going. And, I think, really, when you evaluate games after the fact, there’s obviously things we want to work on to get better, and we know we can be critical of as a staff, that we know we can continue to improve.
So, I think stepping out of it, there were some things that I felt like at times we were trying to do what we wanted to, and looking back, I think there’s some things we can change as far as how we want to approach that situation.
But, really it just comes down to learning from each situation. We’ve had very unique games to this point, so I think it’s been good to go through that early in the season. We’ve played really, really good defenses, and we’ve had to adjust accordingly … I think it’s been a really good learning process for us early now as a coaching staff and players to continue to grow as an offense.“
Patullo later said that one of their big issues in the second half was not being able to get anything done on first down, but he pointed to the staff needing to make changes to avoid that.
As far as communication, Patullo highlighted that he and A.J. Brown have talked a lot over their time together with the Eagles, so he knows how to reach the WR and as far as he’s concerned, they’re in a good place. The OC also made sure to note that he knows where Brown’s heart and motivation are, and knows that the receiver just wants to do anything and everything to help them win.
Patullo said that if you look through all four games, they’ve had Brown do some different things, so he’s not just running the same route. They go into game-planning each week with Brown as the primary and work to try and get him involved, and sometimes the ball finds him more than others. The OC said that Brown and the rest of the playmakers in the offense are really good about understanding that there’s only one ball and they have to spread it around.
