Marcus Hayes: Kevin Patullo's offense wastes two Quinyon Mitchell interceptions in crushing Eagles playoff loss

Marcus Hayes, The Philadelphia Inquirer on Jan 11, 2026

Published in Football

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PHILADELPHIA — This time last year, few fans outside of the most rabid NFL knew who Kevin Patullo was. For the record, he was the Philadelphia Eagles’ passing game coordinator and coach Nick Sirianni’s favorite lieutenant.

Now, everybody knows his name. After 18 games of ineptness as the Eagles’ offensive coordinator, Patullo will bear the blame for the lost season of 2025.

It might not be true. The defense needed two months to round into shape.

It might not be fair. More than half of the offensive line was injured to some degree all season, and neither wide receiver A.J. Brown nor running back Saquon Barkley played to his usual standards.

An offense that featured Barkley, Brown, Jalen Hurts, DeVonta Smith, Dallas Goedert and a well-paid, pedigreed offensive line scored two early touchdowns against the visiting San Francisco 49ers Sunday night.

It had been 22 years since the Eagles suffered such a gutting home playoff loss. Move over, Carolina.

The Eagles gave away a 23-19 wild-card playoff loss to a 49ers team that had crossed three time zones with a depleted roster that, after the second quarter, also had lost one of its better players, tight end George Kittle. Hurts and Patullo’s offense had a chance to score the winning touchdown in the closing minutes, but the drive broke down and failed at the 21-yard line on the quarterback’s fourth-down incompletion intended for Goedert with 40 seconds left.

The 49ers’ first possession, comprised mainly of passes for 61 and 11 yards, lent credence to the people who wanted the Eagles to play their starters instead of resting them in Game 17 the week before. The defense looked more than just rusty. It looked inept.

The Eagles’ maligned offense somehow stayed sharper than the celebrated defense. On its first possession, six runs from Barkley helped move the Eagles to the 1, where tight end Goedert ran the ball for just the fourth time in his career and scored his first rushing touchdown.

The Eagles’ next score happened because Barkley waited for Landon Dickerson to block a defender on a 20-yard screen pass. Later, Hurts waited for a defender to clear the path between himself and Goedert, whom Hurts found for a 9-yard touchdown pass.

The game was punctuated by a sideline incident with 2 minutes, 2 seconds to play in the first half as the Eagles prepared to punt. Head coach Nick Sirianni ran 30 yards down the sideline toward the touchy wide receiver Brown, who, in Sirianni’s view, was taking too much time exiting the field. Brown stopped and appeared to heatedly argue the point. Security chief Dom DiSandro separated them.

A few seconds later Brown shouted in Sirianni’s direction, and was ushered away by sideline personnel and teammates.

The stars starred.

Goedert, who set an Eagles record with 11 touchdown catches, tied for the league lead, ran for one touchdown — the first tight end to do so in NFL playoff history — and caught another.

Quinyon Mitchell, the team’s best defensive back since Brian Dawkins, collected his third and fourth interceptions in his five career playoff games.

Barkley ran 26 times for 106 yards and caught a 20-yard pass.

The 49ers entered depleted by injury and they left even worse, having lost star tight end Kittle to an Achilles tendon rupture in the second quarter. But they also left as winners, a No. 6 seed scheduled to travel to No. 1 seed Seattle. Had the Eagles won, they would have gone to No. 2 seed Chicago, a winner Saturday over Green Bay.

It continued the season’s theme. Patullo’s offense broke down one last time.

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