The endless cycle of the sports media going after the Philadelphia Eagles has been dreadful for fans, who have had ESPN on mute this week after what happened on Sunday.
It was something out of a bad sports movie as the Eagles saw their 14-point lead in the fourth quarter evaporate quicker than a splash of water in the 100-degree sun as they fell to the Denver Broncos 21-17. The most noticeable aspect of that game was how much Philly passed the ball, and it was at an alarming rate.
During the game, the Eagles ran 55 plays on offense. The full breakdown is that Philly had Jalen Hurts drop back 44 times to pass, 38 of those passes were completed, and the other six resulted in sacks.
As for the running game? They ran it 11 times. Saquon Barkley had six carries in the game, but for the last 32 minutes of the game, he had one carry.
Hence, the Eagles' biggest problem appears to be at the offensive coordinator position, currently held by Kevin Patullo.
Patullo defended himself when asked about the lack of balance on offense
This was one of the burning questions from Patullo's press conference on Tuesday, as the media was interested in his explanation. Patullo credits it to the fact that once again, it was Hurts who had control over whether it could be a run or a pass with the RPO calls.
"We go into a game with a menu of what we wanna do, I think this game presented something a little different.. I think we called 6 RPO's that ended up being thrown, so that impacts the stats.. I think each game it depends on certain things."
Even if Patullo eliminated the RPO plays and they were flipped from passes to runs, that would still make it 32 passes (38 drop backs if we keep the six sacks) and 17 runs. That's still a 69% pass rate over the run. It doesn't help.
Many have contributed to Patullo's abandonment of the run, following A.J. Brown's cryptic post after the Tampa Bay Buccaneers game, which put pressure on him to call more passes. A player should never dictate how the plays should be called. Yes, get the ball to Brown, but balance it out by ensuring Brown receives targets and Barkley gets at least 20 to 25 touches, not just nine.
Read more: Jalen Hurts cooks up perfect response to Eagles' recent offensive struggles
Patullo still has a lot to learn about being a play caller, and the Eagles are five weeks into the season. That's a pressing issue that needs to be resolved against the New York Giants on Thursday.