Following their one-sided loss to the Chicago Bears on Black Friday, the Philadelphia Eagles have been outscored 41-15 since the second half of their loss to the Dallas Cowboys in Week 12.
There are several issues facing this team as the calendar turns to December, unfortunately the problems are rather glaring and they fall on both sides of the ball after the Bears exposed the Eagles' rush defense by, rather easily, putting up 281 yards on the ground in their 24-15 victory to improve Chicago's record to 9-3, and drop Philadelphia to 8-4.
While figuring out how to shore up the run defense is a job for Vic Fangio, the Eagles' offense continues to look listless and, based on Sirianni's stance on the matter, that isn't likely to change anytime soon.
Nick Sirianni Doing Eagles No Favors With Loyalty to OC Kevin Patullo
Following Philadelphia's latest loss, Sirianni met with the media in attendance at Lincoln Financial Field and, yet again, pledged his loyalty to the Eagles' offensive coordinator, Kevin Patullo. After giving an initial response filled with coach-speak, Sirianni was flat-out asked whether he'd make a change at playcaller, and that was met with a hard no.
“No, we're not changing the play caller, but we will evaluate everything,” Sirianni said, via Dave Zangaro of NBC Sports Philadelphia. “This weekend, we'll have another little mini-bye. Another short week that leads to a long weekend where we'll evaluate everything. But again, like I said after that, it's never just about one person. You win as a team, you lose as a team, and you try to evaluate everything, win, lose or draw and get better from it.”
Patullo and his playcalling have been an issue all season long. Despite that, Sirianni has stood by him the entire time, no matter how ugly things have looked on that side of the ball. At this point, it isn't overly surprising to see him continue to stick with his hire, but it cannot be understated just how much of a disadvantage this is forcing Philadelphia to overcome.
With the defense now facing major issues of its own, this doesn't appear to be the type of roster that should be expected to contend for a Super Bowl championship. Now, this can all change between Week 14 and the end of the regular season campaign, but after 13 weeks of the same thing, it is hard to expect an epiphany to occur overnight.
As long as Sirianni sees no issue with the way things are going on offense, he is putting his own team behind the 8-ball in what will be their most important stretch of the 2025 campaign.