The Eagles Are Wasting Elite Talent With Pathetically Predictable Playcalling
Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts (1) looks to pass during the second half of an NFL football game against the Detroit Lions on Sunday, No. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Stop me if you’ve heard this before, the Eagles offense won a game where the defense played elite and the Eagles scored a touchdown on a tush push. They won another game where Jake Elliott was the Eagles’ offensive MVP, taking home a 16-9 win over the Detroit Lions.
The passing game has lost all confidence, and the offense has become one-sided. There is no excuse for an offense that has so many weapons to be this bad. There is no reason that a passing game that has A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith, Jahan Dotson, Dallas Goedert, and Jalen Hurts should go into Sunday night’s game ranked 25th in the NFL. Just as there is no reason that the offense that has Saquon Barkley and the Eagles’ offensive line should rank 24th. This has been the worst offensive start for an Eagles team in over 20 years.
On Sunday night, it seemed like Kevin Patullo was making it a priority to try and throw the ball deep to Brown specifically, following his comments calling the Eagles offense a “s*** show” and several other statements about his role in the offense. The problem is that Hurts either forced the ball into tight coverage or flat-out overthrew him. Brown was not given a chance to make a catch because of this. I have to say that the only passing play that showed any innovation and imagination was the bootleg throw that Hurts made to Dotson from the Lions’ end zone. Dotson also had to slow down to allow the ball to get to him; as if he caught it on the run, he was gone for six.
So what do I think is the problem here? My feeling is that there are three things at play here — the first and, in my opinion, the most detrimental issue is that Patullo’s play calling is not fooling anyone. Timing routes of more than 15 yards designed to create yards after the catch have all but disappeared from the play sheet this season. Sunday night, the only times that there were deep balls thrown to Brown, there was no window to throw the ball into with either Brian Branch, Rock Ya-Sin, or Alex Anzalone shadowing him all game. You could see on these throws that Hurts was making one read, so this was an obviously designed play to get the ball to A.J., do or die. If we can see this is happening, Dan Campbell and his coaching staff can diagnose it as well, and they did all game.
The other thing at play here is that Hurts has seemed to lose what deep-throw touch he had last season. On deep throws, he has routinely overthrown receivers despite them having a step on the defender. This happened on 4 passes Sunday night when just connecting on one of them would have resulted in a touchdown. There was one pass that was overthrown to Barkley, where he had 2 steps on a linebacker, and a throw with a little more touch, a throw that was floated a little more would have been an easy touchdown. Saquon needed a little time to run under the ball a bit more. This has been a problem all season.
On 28 attempts against the Lions, Hurts only completed two throws that gained more than 15 yards, the 34-yard shot to Dotson and a 17-yarder to Goedert. The other 12 completions were all 12 yards or less, which is how you end up at 4.8 yards per attempt in a league that lives on explosives. Hurts’ lack of touch on throws of 30+ yards has hamstrung the Eagles’ passing game. When Brown had his best seasons with the Eagles in 2022 and 2023, Hurts was throwing jump balls to Brown, and because of his incredible athleticism, what is normally a 50/50 ball with another receiver is an 80% catch with Brown. Hurts hasn’t only missed Brown with deeper throws, he’s missed Smith, Goedert, Barkley, and Dotson regularly as well.
The other possible thing that has been an issue all season is that the offensive line hasn’t been healthy all season. It’s been a patchwork line with Cam Jurgens missing time, and Jordan Mailata, Fred Johnson, and Lane Johnson being the anchors of the offensive line. The offensive line, which was one of the strengths of the team last season, was supposed to be one of the strengths again coming into the season. Sunday night was a rare occasion; they had the entire offensive line in the game with Jurgens returning, but that was short-lived, because Johnson exited with a foot injury in the first quarter, and Jurgens left in the fourth in-between two tush pushes trying to pick up a 4th down, which would have all but sealed the game. The second attempt was stopped by the Lions, and there was a turnover on downs. Not to mention, there were several false starts, including 2 on tush push plays, which ended up being punts.
The playcalling is the biggest thing that needs to be addressed here. In Sunday night’s game, the Eagles ran 74 offensive plays, and I was able to predict the play call on 62 of them, and it was not difficult, to be honest. Patullo’s play calling is very predictable, and he has not broken the pattern much this season.
The biggest issue with Hurts’ deep throws this season is confidence, and if the plays were designed better and mixed, Hurts could get in the groove, allowing him to not zero in on one deep route and throw into a narrow window or rush his throw and over-throw his receivers.
With all of this said, the Eagles are 8-2 and in the running for the top seed in the NFC. Why am I making such a big deal about this? “If it ain’t broke, then don’t try to fix it,” right? Yes, the Eagles are 8-2, but almost despite the offense. If you had told me going into the season that Elliott, the kicker, would be the offensive MVP through week 11, I would have said you lost all touch with reality.
I know it’s annoying to hear Brown say so many bad things about the offense and telling people to drop him from fantasy. But while he could be handling his frustrations better and being a little accountable, he’s not the problem here. He is a side effect of the problem. We have to look forward to the postseason here. Scoring 16 points isn’t going to cut it against other playoff-caliber teams like the Los Angeles Rams. Though I gave three reasons for this, there is truly only one reason, and it’s the playcalling of Patullo, that needs to change, and fast. There is no excuse to see this offense this predictable and toothless.
Steve Hamilton
Steve may have been born in California, but don’t let that fool you. After dating a local woman and clashing with her and her family over sports for decades, he has an affinity for Philly sports. Balancing love for Philly and Bay Area sports teams may seem impossible, we can all agree that the Cowboys are the true evil.
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