After the embarrassing loss to the New York Giants on Thursday, the Philadelphia Eagles are in desperate need of some soul-searching to fix their offensive woes. Since the start of the season, offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo has been under fire for the offense's lack of creativity.
Now, fans are desperately waiting for Nick Sirianni to make changes on that side of the ball during the long week ahead of Sunday's Vikings matchup.
Nick Sirianni Takes the Matters into His Hands Ahead of Week 7
On Monday, Sirianni revealed what he and Patullo have been working on. According to Jeff McLane of The Philadelphia Inquirer, Sirianni said "no" when asked if changes were coming to the offensive play-calling, but discussed what would be changing instead. Eagles Nation posted on X that Sirianni stated he and Patullo "worked on the inefficiencies of the Eagles offense, particularly on third downs" and the two "found some solutions, and are excited to have the opportunity to amend them."
This is obviously not the statement many Eagles fans wanted to see today. Taking advantage of the mini-bye week, there was some hope that Sirianni and the Eagles' top brass would make a more drastic change to their offense. Instead, as The Athletic's Zach Berman reported, Sirianni focused on "not assigning blame." He added that this didn't necessarily rule out a bigger change, as defensive coordinator Sean Desai was relieved of his play-calling duties during the 2023 season without Sirianni ever assigning blame.
At the same time, it's understandable that Sirianni and Patullo are working together to address the issues that are plaguing this team. Patullo has been on this coaching staff since 2021 and has been working under Sirianni since 2018. There is obvious mutual respect there, and Sirianni clearly believes Patullo to be a valuable member of the staff. Finding a better play-caller at this stage of the season may prove to be more difficult than some think.
Focusing on third downs at least suggests that they have identified part of the problem. The Eagles have struggled immensely there, especially in recent weeks. In the last three games, Philadelphia has the worst third-down conversion rate in the league by a mile, converting on just 23.53% of its attempts. They currently rank 27th for the season with a conversion rate of 34.67%. In comparison, the Packers lead the NFL by converting 52.3% of their third downs.
While third downs are clearly an issue, they could be more of a symptom of a larger problem. The Eagles are not making the right adjustments, don't have enough variety and creativity in their play-calling, and are entirely too predictable. Addressing these would help lessen the burden of these third-down issues. Sirianni's involvement is a step in the right direction, but whether it pays dividends in Week 7 remains to be seen.