Headlined by three crucial A.J. Brown drops, Kevin Patullo’s ever-unpopular play-calling, and a missed extra point by Jake Elliott, the Philadelphia Eagles ended their year on a sour note, losing 19-23 to the San Francisco 49ers in the first round of the NFL playoffs.
Their season, a severe step-back from their last season, in which they won a Super Bowl, was a massive disappointment for Eagles fans. Their former 2,000-yard rusher and last year’s Offensive Player of the Year, Saquon Barkley, did not return to last year’s form, putting up just a little over half as many yards and touchdowns as the previous year.
Part of the blame for Barkley’s not-as-stellar season could be put on age, the league figuring out how to stop him, etc., but the majority of Eagles fans instead put most, if not all, of the blame on OC (offensive coordinator) Kevin Patullo.
Patullo—hired to fill the void created by the previous Eagles’ OC and now New Orleans Saints head coach Kellen Moore—started to face mass criticism among Eagles fans beginning around week three.
His head-scratching play calls and poor usage of offensive weapons sparked outrage among fans, as despite having virtually the same players on offense as last year, they dropped in points per game from 7th to 19th in the league. They also suffered a similar drop-off in yards per game, going from 8th in the league to 24th. The most telling example of this is that after their week 9 bye, they only scored more than 20 points in three of their remaining eleven games.
However, their defense, despite key departures such as Darius “Big Play” Slay, C.J. Gardner-Johnson, and long-time Eagle Brandon Graham, stayed roughly the same. This was due in part to the continued productions of players such as Zack Baun, Quinyon Mitchell, Cooper Dejean, Reed Blankenship, and Jalen Carter, as in both 2024 & 2025, the Eagles maintained a top-five scoring defense.
This combination, along with a worsening Jake Elliott, led the Eagles to an objectively good, but still disappointing 11-6 record, which won them the NFC East and a home playoff game.
In that playoff game, as previously mentioned, they lost 19-23. The easiest finger to point at was A.J. Brown, who, despite complaining about not getting the ball enough all year via cryptic social media posts, dropped three pivotal passes. The most important drop directly led to them losing the game.
With two and a half minutes to go, the Eagles needed a touchdown, as they trailed by four. However, if it wasn’t for Jake Elliott doinking his first extra point of the day, the Eagles would’ve only been down by three. If that was the case, the Eagles could have kicked a field goal (assuming they drove down the field as they did in real life) and sent the game into overtime. But it wasn’t, so we went to that fateful 3rd and 5.
Jalen Hurts dropped back, looked over the middle, and fired a ball right into the hands of A.J. Brown. The ball then went right through his hands, just like the game.
But the Eagles recovered, and ended up driving down to the 49er’s redzone. However, they quickly faced a do-or-die fourth down and 11. Hurts then threw to the reliable Dallas Goedert. But, he was quadruple-covered, and the ball hit a plethora of 49er’s fingertips before it made its contact with the cold grass of Lincoln Financial Field.
And just like that, the Eagles’ season was over.
This legendary soundbite from the now-viral Salvo, a passionate 11-year-old Eagles fan, perfectly encapsulates many of his fellow fans’ thoughts on Patullo. Not even a week later, he and most other Eagles fans got their wish, as Patullo was fired and the Eagles are now looking for their fifth OC in five years.
In a less funny and more thought-out response, Saquon Barkley said after their playoff loss,
In conclusion, this season was an incredibly disappointing year for the Eagles, which many fans would like to forget as the team saw a huge step back from the Super Bowl-winning season just one year ago. With their offense looking bleaker than it has in years, Kevin Patullo will go down on the long, long list of athletes, coaches, and other sports figures whose names are uttered in the city of brotherly love with hatred.
