Kevin Patullo

Q. It seems like T Lane Johnson had said something about the predictability of the offense and more outside zone was maybe his one suggestion. Did you get that kind of feedback when you looked at the run offense? What could be done to make it less predictable? (Jeff McLane)

Kevin Patullo: I think the comment Lane had, and what’s great about the players is the communication with all of us is constant, whether it’s during game, whether it’s during the week, even on days off, things like that. That’s been really, really good and productive for us. I think a lot of it comes down to is, and I know [Head Coach] Nick [Sirianni] alluded to this, too, is sometimes situational moments in the game where you’re limited a little bit depending on where you’re at [with] field position, down and distance, select plays, what the defense does at times, if they’re a big edge pressure team during certain situations, that can dictate a little bit of what you want to do.

I think when you talk about the situational stuff and/or the predictability, you’ve just got to look at where the whole context is, and I think that’s what kind of the last day or so, over the weekend, things we were able to look at where we were, where we are, where we want to go, and what we know we need to do to go forward. I think it was very productive. We had a good meeting yesterday as an offensive unit, and so I think we’re in a good spot working forward.

Q. After reviewing this weekend, where are you as an offense? After gathering that information, where you feel like you guys are? (Cayden Steele)

Kevin Patullo: I think when you look at just the progress from the first game until now, each game has been very different going forward. When you look at just where we want to go, we know there’s a lot of areas we want to improve on and be more consistent in. I think that’s the biggest thing is just consistency, and it’s our job as a staff to continue to put the players in the best position, and then we’ve just got to execute it and work as a full unit together and continue to build and grow.

I mean, last year, we had some kind of weird things going on that we needed to work through and continue to throughout the year. I think that’s a lot of teams that are in this spot right now. If you watch around the league, there’s a lot of teams that are kind of still finding their way, whether it’s personnel, whatever it is, and I think that’s kind of where we’re at. We’ve got great players and they’re all into it and the energy’s high and we know we can be what we want as we work forward.

Q. Along those lines, how much feedback have you gotten from guys like QB Jalen Hurts, WR A.J. Brown, WR DeVonta Smith, T Lane Johnson? Basically, I guess the collective of the players on offense. How much feedback have you gotten from them over the last couple of days about the offense? (EJ Smith)

Kevin Patullo: They do a really good job. I mean the communication, like I said, is constant. I think that’s a big, big part of being a coach, whether it’s position coach or a coordinator like myself, is just constantly talking to the players because ultimately, they’re the ones out there, so they have a good feel for what’s going on, what they feel physically and mentally, and so I think that’s been great. Like I said, we had a really good meeting yesterday about how we want to work forward on some things and detailed some stuff out. I think communication is a big piece of it and it comes with good and bad communication, so you’ve got to have the feedback both ways and I think that’s where it’s critical for all of us to grow as an offensive unit.

Q. When it comes to those conversations with players, how do you make sure that they know they’re being heard and that you’re going to maybe implement some of the things they’ve suggested? (Dave Zangaro)

Kevin Patullo: I think they just want to see– and just like coaches, right? You’re always looking for video examples or details or real true information, and each situation is very different, so you really want to have a concrete example of something. Or, ‘Hey, I feel this, is this what I’m seeing?’ Or, ‘Let’s talk about it and kind of work through it.’ I think you get a lot of detail with that. It’s not just something that’s said. There’s more into it and there’s more depth and reps and video that can help you with the examples.

Q. QB Jalen Hurts’ interception, could you take us through what you saw in the play? And then, to my novice, it looked like WR A.J. Brown was an option on that play. Is that true? (Eliot Shorr-Parks)

Kevin Patullo: How the play worked was the coverage that they had. He had a couple options he could have went with, and unfortunately, it just didn’t work out to hit [WR] Jahan [Dotson] over there, but he was definitely onto what he wanted to do and it’s just something that just didn’t work.

Q. The unusual thing is that there’s times this offense looks so good, like those last two drives in the first half the other night. And then there’s long stretches where you can’t get back to that. What does that, I guess lack of consistency, the lack of sustaining the success, what does that say and how does that happen? (Reuben Frank)

Kevin Patullo: I think when you look at those stretches, and that’s kind of where we’ve hit those bumps throughout games up until this point, whether it’s an inefficient first down or an inefficient second down and you get behind the sticks. That’s happened to us a few times. Then when you get in those ruts, you get kind of like, ‘Okay, now we’ve got to do this to get out of it or we’re in a long yard situation.’ We had a few of them happen the other night. We had an efficient run on first down, inefficient run on second down, and it put us in a third-and-long.

When you get those, it feels choppy, and that’s kind what we looked at as well. Our third downs, we weren’t as good in the game as we would like to be. We’ve got to eliminate those third-and-longs. Third-and-seven plus in the NFL is tough. The defense is dictating to you at that point. So, we’ve got to try to stay ahead of that and that’s what’s got us in these modes a little bit at times to not be as efficient as we could be like you alluded to. Some of those drives, we’re kind of on schedule and moving it forward and putting the defense in a position where they feel us rather than we feel them.

Q. Is this going to have to look different or is it a matter of refining what you have planned on during the first five weeks? (Zach Berman)

Kevin Patullo: I would say both, right? I mean defenses kind of change as time goes on and we have to change. We have to adapt each week and look at what we are doing, what we’ve done and try to be ahead of them as best we can.

Q. When it comes to half-field reads, what are the benefits of that for a quarterback and what are some of the detriments? (Jeff McLane)

Kevin Patullo: When you talk about reads, each quarterback’s different, obviously, and sometimes when you split the field, you’re trying to speed it up for them if you can. I think it’s getting a little bit harder as defenses have evolved to do that. You’re getting a lot of different coverages that you used to sometimes get some indicators, now it’s very difficult. I think the game’s changed a little bit from that standpoint, but that’s pretty much what you’re doing. You’re just trying to speed it up if you can as far as splitting the field in half.

Q. You kind of alluded to this a little bit. RB Saquon Barkley said the other day that sometimes it feels like you guys need to impose your will more on them. Do you feel like that’s been an issue in the running game? (Bob Brookover)

Kevin Patullo: I wouldn’t say it’s been an issue. I think when you’re in phase and we’re on schedule, we’re able to do that, but when you’re not, it gets a little tricky because now the defense has got a different mindset. They give you more exotic things. It’s not an advantageous look for the offense to just sit there and say, ‘Hey, we can do 10 different things.’ Now we’re in a weird spot to where it’s like, ‘Okay, we can only do a few things. They know it, so now we’ve got to adjust a little bit.’ I think that’s kind of what we’ve got to take a step forward and just keep putting the pressure on the defense and be physical with them.

Q. Just to follow up, specifically the last two games, have you been satisfied with the amount of times you’ve run the ball, or would you like it to be more? (Bob Brookover)

Kevin Patullo: I would like to increase it, obviously. Some of that that we talked about a week ago is those kind of RPOs that we run where sometimes the runs called, then the ball gets pulled and thrown, and they’ve been successful. But yes, we need to continue to grow in that area.

Q. You’ve been around QB Jalen Hurts for a while now. What do you find when there’s a play that isn’t up to the standard from him that is the most effective way to coach him the way that he likes to be coached? (Tim McManus)

Kevin Patullo: I think the biggest thing is just our communication’s really good in general. Whether it’s in that moment in game, whether it’s looking at the tablet, looking through the pictures or just throughout the week, the preparation that we put into it, just constant communication. And he’s great about coming over immediately saying like, ‘Hey, this is what I see, what’d you see,’ and talking through it with him and the other guys. I think the communication has been really, really good. That’s why I think you can see at times where things kind of worked themselves out well.

Q. What are you seeing as far as the inefficiencies on first and second downs that you mentioned? I think Head Coach Nick Sirianni talked about that yesterday as well. What’s the biggest issue there? (Martin Frank)

Kevin Patullo: Really, to be honest, there has not been one specific thing. That’s where we’ve got to just continue to do a better job as a staff and put the guys in position and then just execute it as we go. That’s kind of the biggest thing that we talked about yesterday, too, as an offense, is there’s not one thing, not one person. It’s all of us as a unit. So we’ve just got to continue to grow as a unit to stay out of those areas.

Q. T Lane Johnson had also mentioned adjustments, some of the simulated pressures versus the blitz. You’ve had these really effective phases where you’re really good, then it slows down. From that perspective, if you’re on schedule, are you happy with the adjustments? (John McMullen)

Kevin Patullo: I think when we look at the plays that we’re on schedule, we’re dictating and we’ve had our moments where we’ve done a good job with those pressures and different things. Yes, we’ve done a good job, but with everything to the earlier question, we’ve got to continue to push the envelope, right? Because defenses will change and do different things and find new answers. We’re playing a really, really good defense this week again, and so we’ve got to continue to push that to give them new things and different things. I think that’s the way the league’s going. If you watch around the league, there’s a lot of this stuff popping up in games, the simulated pressures and different things. So, it’s our job to just continue to work on it.

Q. To follow up on the adjustments, just how much of those in-game adjustments are organic versus contingency planning? (Brooks Kubena)

Kevin Patullo: There’s both, right? Because when you show up into a game, we have really, really good players and you never truly know what a defense is going to do. So, from week to week, you have like, ‘Okay, we know they can do this. They have done this in the past.’ If you’ve played them before, there’s history. Some teams where you don’t have a lot of history, you’ve got to look at what the coordinator’s done. Some of it is very, very organic. We had to do that in the Rams game; it was very organic. There’s been other games where it’s like, ‘Okay, we know they have this, we feel like this is coming and get ready for these adjustments.’ So, it just depends on, each game’s very different, but you do go into a game looking like, ‘Okay, this is what we think they want to do.’ But because of our talented roster, sometimes you get different things because they know they’ve got to stop you in different ways.

Q. You personally, obviously you’ve been here a while. You’ve been integral to QB Jalen Hurts’ development, but now as OC, you’re kind of the man in the arena. You’re constantly under the microscope, constantly getting critiqued. What’s that been like for you personally? The things that come with the job? (Christiaan DeFranco)

Kevin Patullo: I would say it’s not that much different [as before]. When I’m in the building, we’re in the building, we’re all together. We know we’re all in this together as a staff and with the players and as a team. I don’t think that’s been really any different. When we step outside the building, obviously that can be different, but when we’re in here, we’re all in here together and it’s a fun challenge. I love my job, just like we all do, and we want to win, and we’ll do anything we have to to win the game.