Kevin Patullo

Q. What can you do to get the ball down the field? (Reuben Frank)

Kevin Patullo: When you look at when we game plan and stuff like that, that’s obviously always the first thing we do is [ask], ‘How do we want to push the ball down the field?’ As a staff, we work really hard on the plan, especially these next couple days, to put that on there and that’s a part of it. Sometimes, in-game, it just doesn’t happen. It’s definitely something we want to do. It’s not something we’re avoiding. I know going forward, we have the plan in place, and if it comes up, it’ll definitely happen.

Q. It looked like you might’ve had a long explosive play dialed up from the first play, but some breakdown in pass protection there. Is that accurate? Were you trying to get– (Ed Kracz)

Kevin Patullo: Yeah, we had a shot. It didn’t happen unfortunately, and we were in a second-and-long and we just had to play it out from there. But yeah, we definitely did.

Q. I imagine you guys always expect blitz when Chiefs Defensive Coordinator Steve Spagnuolo is on the other side, but he really amped it up. How do you think you guys handled that much? (John McMullen)

Kevin Patullo: Yeah, he definitely did. If you look at the Super Bowl and the previous games until this past one, he definitely did. But really overall, the efficiency was high, which was a great sign. Obviously, the ball didn’t go down the field as much. We did hit the one big time play to [WR] DeVonta [Smith], which was a really good answer to what they were doing and something we were able to kind of push through during the game. But overall, if you look at the efficiency versus the pressure, we did a really good job, which was encouraging when it turned into that kind of game.

Q. After two weeks, the tendencies on your sets, pistol, shotgun, under center, has shown more run, is that something you’re monitoring? Is that something you’re looking to mix up? What do you think? (Brooks Kubena)

Kevin Patullo: Yeah, so same thing. I went through this morning some of the self-scout stuff and we get all those numbers and you try to counteract those going in, and sometimes situationally the plays pop up where you’re just not able to do that. But definitely, it is definitely on our mind as far as when you plan those things, you always want to make sure, ‘Oh, I have a tendency I can break.’ Definitely need to do that this week.

Q. When it comes to tendency breakers, do you have a philosophy on when’s the right time to run long? (Dave Zangaro)

Kevin Patullo: I think it really depends on– obviously, you can do that early in the game, you can do it late in the game, it can pop up whenever. It just depends on what you’re featuring that day, what’s working. So if something’s working, it may come up, it may not. You may go into a game and say like, ‘Hey, this is the play we’ve got to break the tendency with’, but then it never occurs because it’s not that kind of game for it. So it’s a little bit of a back and forth guessing game, like in-game, sometimes it appears, sometimes it doesn’t. Maybe it’s a week from now. You know what I mean? It doesn’t have to be that game right away, sometimes.

Q. Beyond the lack of explosives, there haven’t been many throws into the intermediate part of the field. What has been the reason for that? (Jeff McLane)

Kevin Patullo: I think sometimes it’s just dictated [by] the situation we’re in. The other day, we’re getting the ball out, obviously, versus the pressure. So it was a little bit different, which we did a pretty good job of. Then a lot of times, it just comes down to just situationally if we’re playing it a certain way, like ‘Hey, we’re trying to get to a fourth-down mode,’ or we’re trying to take all four downs, sometimes it doesn’t appear.

So really, it just comes down to if the first guy’s open, sometimes he hits them, and then if the intermediate thing is there within the play, it’s there. The other day, we had a lot of balls coming out quick with the pressure, which was good.

Q. As far as condensed sets, what do you like about them and why have they been featured as much as they have this year? (Zach Berman)

Kevin Patullo: I think that’s kind of been a trend a little bit around the league, if you look. I know [Rams Head Coach] Sean [McVay] does a lot of them, too. You can get some things with coverage, which is nice in some matchups, and you can kind help yourself, but I think it just kind of gives you a little bit of a look at the defense that kind of can help the quarterback.

Q. On the broadcast, Tom Brady said it looked to him like there were no receivers open throughout the game. When you went back and watched, did you see receivers were getting open, and for whatever reason the ball wasn’t getting there? Or what did you see from that? (Eliot Shorr-Parks)

Kevin Patullo: Yeah, I didn’t watch the telecast, I listened to it. I think really if you looked at how we were doing what we were doing, we had opportunities. If he’s speaking to maybe downfield stuff or trying to do that, that could be different. But just the efficiency, like I said, we kind of got the ball where it needed to be in time in space with what was happening. So I mean, if you’re expecting these deep developing routes, that probably wasn’t going to happen on that day the way it was played out. But yeah, I’d have to look at what he was talking about in the moment.

Q. Are there ever times it does make sense to force it with the quarterback you have and the receivers you have? (Reuben Frank)

Kevin Patullo: I think there’s a fine line, right? Because you don’t ever want to put the quarterback in harm’s way. If you do that and the protection doesn’t hold up or it doesn’t add up to what they’re doing, you could have a catastrophic problem. That was one of those games we knew. Both offenses– it was a tough game for both of us. So if you put somebody in harm’s way and kind of say, ‘I’m taking a huge chance right here,’ that negative play could be a major issue and really could be the deciding factor in the game.

Ultimately, one turnover in that game was the deciding factor. And when you look at the times we’ve played them, even back to ’23 and whatever, it’s been like one turnover, it’s been an issue. Obviously in the Super Bowl, that was kind of what blew it open were the turnovers, so you could sense that in the game, even from them on their offense. The way the game was flowing, any mistake was going to be kind of one of those things that got you the win.

Q. Is a possible drawback of condensed sets is that it brings the defense in closer as well? Also, I was wondering what you thought of QB Jalen Hurts’ recognition at the line. (Christiaan DeFranco)

Kevin Patullo: I think it definitely can, but what it also can do is it also can create confusion on their part, too, right? Because you are able to do things from tighter splits of time. And I know, like I said, Sean does that too and a lot of guys do where you’re crossing guys and moving guys when you’re out in time and space, when you’re spread out, sometimes you don’t get that effect.

So I think it’s a ‘both and,’ and I thought overall, for what Jalen was asked to do, he did a really good job of handling things at the line of scrimmage and identifying what was happening. He saw it well and got the ball out.

Q. Head Coach Nick Sirianni often cites the explosive plays and the turnovers as the two major things, but I guess they can work in contrast in a sense with one another, right? The more aggressive you’re being, bigger chance of a– How much are you sort of looking at that sliding scale and where do you think it needs to be after two weeks? (Tim McManus)

Kevin Patullo: It’s a fine line, right? Because turnovers ultimately are a huge deciding factor and if you count the fourth-down stop we had, that’s another turnover. So, turnovers really can change the game quickly. Explosive plays are great and you always want to try to get them. It makes it way easier to score. It makes it way more efficient, obviously, for an offense to move the ball down the field. But there is a fine line because you want to make sure those explosive plays aren’t coming at a cost where you’re at a high risk for a turnover in a game like that.

Q. What is the reasoning for the lack of design QB runs? (Jeff McLane)

Kevin Patullo: I don’t think there’s lack of design. I just don’t think they’ve come up necessarily right now. He does a good job of running when he needs to, and don’t worry, we still have those.

Q. RB Saquon Barkley’s longest run Sunday was 13 yards in the touchdown run. It’s been kind of tough sledding so far for him. What’s the reason for that do you think? And what do you need to do to get him kind of where he was last year? (Ed Kracz)

Kevin Patullo: I don’t think there’s really a specific reason per se. I think just when you look at the style of defense we went up against, and really, right in the Super Bowl, too, it was very similar. I thought we did a really good job of running the ball. The O line was tremendous in the game and Saquon had some really tough earned yards and ran the ball extremely hard. But just going against Spags [Spagnuolo] and kind of what we’ve done, I thought it was a really good job by them upfront to earn those yards.

We haven’t had the glitzy glamor hundred-yard, whatever, the big pop runs that we’ve had, but if you look at the efficiency and what we asked him to do, especially to close the game out, run it out of backed up and have some crucial runs in times. We had that one drive where we got in a nice flow when he was running the ball good, we hit the screen and then we were able to score. I think we’re moving in the right direction.

Q. With those design quarterback runs, the ones that also feature him reading with Barkley, why aren’t those kind of there through the first couple of weeks? (Brooks Kubena)

Kevin Patullo: Oh, they’re still there.

Q. Why weren’t the conditions right for those and what in a general sense marks–(Brooks Kubena)

Kevin Patullo: Sometimes it just depends on really what they’re doing, and the other day with what they were doing, we didn’t really need them necessarily. So there were certain times where we could have done it, but we felt like we had other stuff.

Q. Given what RB Saquon Barkley did against the Rams last year, do you really expect them to have a very different look on defense? (Bob Brookover)

Kevin Patullo: Well, I mean he had the one long one, obviously, in the playoff game, but prior to that, it was just kind of– they did a pretty good job against it. So we’ve had some explosive ones, and they do a really good job against the run. Their front is really, really good. We know that going in, so we will have a plan for that. And then obviously having a plan for whatever they have new wrinkles-wise, because they know obviously Saquon’s a huge part of our offense.

Q. With the way the preseason is treated now by most teams, does it take the September games for the offense to really get into sync? (Merrill Reese)

Kevin Patullo: Probably. Probably does a little bit for everybody. I think if you look around the league, everybody’s kind of doing that right now, feeling it out. I do think it just takes some time to get that going offensively. I mean if you look at everybody, even the Chiefs, you could feel it a little bit from some teams.

Q. When you were elevated to offensive coordinator as an internal candidate, I think the expectation is the offense is going to look the same as it did last year. Obviously, that’s not the case and this is your offense now. What does this process look like when it’s returning 10 of 11 of the starters you had last year, but it’s now your offense and you’re trying to make it your own given the personnel that you have? (Gabriella Galati)

Kevin Patullo: Well, I think even if you go back to last year and years past, you want the offense to trend in the right direction and that direction is at the end of the season, that’s where you want to peak it out. So really, as long as we continue to go through what we’re going through and winning games and finding ways to win, at some point during the year, we’ll say, ‘Oh, we went through that and here’s how we fixed that and here’s how we solved it.’

We went through that last year and we’ve gone through that before. So I think it’s an important thing that we go through it now rather than later and we continue to trend in the right direction because, ultimately, we have a great coaching staff, we have unbelievable players, and we know we can problem solve it.

Every year is so different and every game is different. Everything is going to be different. It’ll never be the same and that was kind of the big message we had to start the year with the offense. It’s not going to be the same, so don’t think it will be. It’ll feel totally different, it’s going to act totally different and it will be different, but as long as we can embrace that and keep pushing through it and developing, we’ll be good at the end.

Q. With all the extra discussion this week about the QB Sneak, are you guys worried that the refs are going to be calling it even closer than they ever have? (Dave Zangaro)

Kevin Patullo: [Jokingly.] I mean, some games they call it close, some games they don’t. Defense is always lined offsides anyway, so I mean it’s always– [Laughter.]

Q. If I can follow up on RB Saquon Barkley’s game, against the Rams last year– I’m paraphrasing him, but the point he made is that when he gets to the second level against that defense, the explosive plays are possible. How do you get it back to the second level when the defense is real condensed like that? (Zach Berman)

Kevin Patullo: It really starts with the guys up front, right? You’ve got to identify what they’re doing and if we’re on the same page, and we’re able to kind of work together to get them through the second level. If the second level wants to work their way into our O line, then we’ve got a really good shot. If you watch a lot of those runs, it starts with the receivers, too, and the tight ends blocking downfield. That’s a huge piece of it. They’ve been working their butt off to try to get him through on some of these runs, and we were really close even on Sunday against Kansas City. Super close on two of them. So I think it’ll happen.