How Jalen Hurts’ Development will be Impacted by 2026 Patullo Firing?
The Eagles fired Kevin Patullo on Tuesday afternoon to the major surprise of nobody, especially Eagles fans who had to suffer through that dull drum of a season. But at the same time, firing Patullo now brings up another huge thing, another play caller for Jalen Hurts.
The Eagles honestly underachieved this season as they missed an opportunity to do something only a few teams have done in recent memory and nine teams have done ever: Repeating as Super Bowl Champions. Hurts now will have his seventh different play-caller in his career to this point because of that underachievement led by Patullo, which is sure to hinder his development, but hiring the right coordinator will help a lot. Just look at the Shane Stechien and Kellen Moore years; Hurts thrived in their systems. Let’s look at the details in full.
This Hire Has to be the Right ONE that will Stay For Multiple Years
The inconsistent systems of play calling over these last few years have been an underlying issue during the Hurts and Nick Sirianni Era. But Patullo was by far the worst option and the worst playcaller in this era. If you don’t believe me, here are some numbers that support my thoughts on this process. Look at this tweet below…
The Eagles need to find a coordinator who brings his own system and allows him to get full autonomy of the offense and staff, etc. Also, the hire has to be someone who wouldn’t leave after one year to be a head coach on some bottom-feeding team like the Raiders or Jets. Hurts needs a guy who will bring some interesting concepts and who can create separation with the concepts themselves, along with bringing some juice back to the running game next season with the QB run and the run scheme overall.
Hurts Development will be Best With Todd Monken
Todd Monken is the guy that I feel is the best option for the Eagles in this situation because the Ravens had a similar mold to what the Eagles want to do offensively with the personnel they have, but the major difference is the receivers in Philly would be 10x better, especially if they keep AJ Brown, hopefully. This would be a notable hire for Hurts because Monken helped Lamar Jackson be an MVP and a runner-up for MVP in 2024, even though they somehow had some dissension.
I’m not comparing Hurts’ game to Jackson’s directly for the most part, but Jalen Hurts can rise to the occasion with the great coaching he has shown in the two Super Bowl years. I think Hurts can definitely run the Monken scheme to perfection like “Action” Jackson did for the last few years. Also, I don’t think teams would go to Monken right away for a head coach job like they would the following people:
- Mike McDaniel
- Kevin Stefanski
- Kliff Kingsbury
Those three guys are great in their own right, but are still young enough and viable offensive minds that teams would want as a head coach, especially after another huge Eagles run, especially if it produces a Moore-like run did in 2024. A lot of Eagles fans also would love to have Monken in the room as well.
I would also like to add that I would consider bringing in the other Eagles Super Bowl MVP to the staff as well, just look at this video of Foles describing what happened on the worst play call of the season from Patullo and articulating what he would’ve done differently.
Conclusion
The Eagles have to take their time with this hire and get it right for the sake of the continued growth of QB1. Hurts has to be the guy that is the priority of this hire because when he’s the dual threat, he is capable of being the offense is one of the best in football, just look at 2024 and 2022 as examples.
In 2024, the offense was No.4 in efficiency because of the elite run game led by the duo of Hurts and Saquon Barkley. Any of the coordinators I mentioned in this article would be great, but Monken is the obvious number 1 choice that would really benefit this offensive philosophy that the team wants, along with potential long-term stability.
