👋 Good morning! The Bash Brothers have been broken up.

Pretty similar Eagles arcs between Kevin Patullo and Press Taylor. No, Patullo did not come up with the Philly Special, but he was here for some good times. He got off the initial plane to Philly with Sirianni, the man who replaced him as offensive quality control coach in Kansas City all the way back in 2009. And then Patullo was the passing game coordinator for four seasons. A lot of wins, two Super Bowl appearances and one Lombardi Trophy during that time.

But when you get promoted to offensive coordinator, it usually goes one of two ways. You either succeed and land a head coaching job elsewhere or you stumble and get replaced. The results were not close to there for Patullo, so like Taylor, he is out.

Once the disappointment wears off, I am legitimately excited to follow The Great Offensive Retooling of 2026. When people point out that Patullo was not the only issue with the Eagles offense this past season, they are right. The Eagles will need to settle on an identity, hire a new play-caller, install that new system with Jalen Hurts in the offseason, acquire and lose players via the draft, free agency and trades, as well as a few other things I am forgetting. A whole lot of stuff needs to get done.

There will be books written about The Great Defensive Retooling of 2024 (in fact, there already are). But to kick off the sequel, Patullo had to be the first move.

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As always, you can reach me at [email protected]

(*DJ Khaled voice*) Another one.

So, Patullo is out and we are reacting. Emergency pod, and a piece from EJ that is unlocked for all to read.

As you can see in EJ’s piece, there is a chart of the worst of Eagles offenses statistically of the past 20 years. The only two that were worse than the 2025 offense (2020, 2012) and the one directly ahead of it (2015) resulted in the head coach getting fired. Nick Sirianni won the Super Bowl last year, so that was not happening this time around. But Patullo being let go was fait accompli.

One initial thought: I know Patullo and Sirianni are close, but the idea of Patullo returning in any capacity seems… very unnecessary? Feels like it would be for the best for all involved if Patullo latched on somewhere, anywhere else. Then again, Brent Pry just got fired as Virginia Tech’s head coach in September and he became the Virginia Tech defensive coordinator in December.

If you listen to the pod, Fran offers some opinions on the initial list of coordinator candidates. It’s a decent list. I cannot wait to analyze them more in-depth, and will do so in the coming days and weeks. Today though, I want to focus on Jalen Hurts.

And no, not Jalen Hurts in the context of who the new Eagles playcaller will be. No, I want to focus on the fact that this person is going to be Hurts’ 13th playcaller in his last 12 seasons of organized football. Thirteen in twelve!

Channelview High School (Texas)

(1) Byron Henderson: Little-known Byron Henderson leads us off (I think, at least). And for all we know, Byron Henderson was the last guy to call plays for Jalen Hurts for two consecutive years. Take a bow, Byron!

Jalen’s father Averion is the longtime head coach at Channelview, and Henderson was his OC. Henderson told multiple outlets that when he would pack up for the day, there would often be a knock at his office door. It was Jalen, wanting to watch more film. That tracks.

🐘 Alabama 🐘

(2) Lane Kiffin: Hurts became the first true freshman to start at Bama in over 30 years. Because all he does is win, Jalen led the Crimson Tide to a 14-0 record and an SEC championship. That year, Kiffin was rehabbing his career as the offensive coordinator after a failed stint at USC. Kiffin and Hurts seemed to have a good relationship.

But on the next step of his career rehabilitation, Kiffin took the head coaching job at Florida Atlantic in December 2016. And for the first time but not the last time, Kiffin unwillingly left his team before a playoff game. Saban kicked Kiffin to the curb for…

(3) Steve Sarkisian: Sark! Jalen really has some Forrest Gump to him, rubbing shoulders with some pretty important people in football over the past decade.

Replacing Kiffin, Sarkisian called the plays in the national title game. Jalen played well, but Alabama lost to Clemson 35-31. Great game. And then Sark immediately took over for Kyle Shanahan as Atlanta’s offensive coordinator, making it just one game for The Jalen and Sark Show. Eagles fans are thankful for that.

(4) Brian Daboll: Dabes! As I told Jamie last night, I am mildly interested in Daboll as the Eagles’ next coordinator. Was he great with the Giants? No, not particularly. But he has two things going for him: A preexisting relationship with Hurts and the feeling that he would not get hired as a head coach after one good season. I really value both of those things!

Hurts led Alabama to the title game, got replaced by Tua Tagovailoa (although that was Saban’s doing, not Daboll’s) and the rest was history.

(5) Mike Locksley: Jalen got benched in 2018 and famously bailed out Alabama in the SEC Championship Game. I do not have a ton on Locksley.

Oklahoma

(6) Lincoln Riley: Jalen transferred out of Alabama, and boy, did he choose right.

Jalen put up a million yards in Riley’s offense, led Oklahoma to a spot in the four-team playoff and finished second in the Heisman voting. Kiffin, ever the troll, got a kick out of Hurts occasionally celebrating touchdowns from over in Boca Raton. Not exactly something he was doing at Alabama.

🦅 Eagles 🦅

I will go rapid-fire here, since we talk about this era all the time. Ever since Jalen got added to The Quarterback Factory, he has experienced these gentlemen calling the plays into his helmet…

(7) Doug Pederson: Super Bowl champion Doug Pederson, that is. At least for a month or so.

(8) Nick Sirianni: Before Johnny Ganz* laid down the law with Nick, telling him that he needed to give up play-calling or that they were going to get fired.

*Per Johnny Ganz

(9) Shane Steichen: The only time that Jalen got to work with a playcaller for two consecutive NFL seasons (not two full seasons, but two straight seasons), he finished second in MVP voting and led the Eagles to the Super Bowl. Easily the best football of his career. Steichen and Hurts ran the ball in 2021, and with A.J. Brown aboard, they opened up the playbook in 2022. Man, I miss all of those RPOs.

(10) Brian Johnson: The first failed internal improvement, although in fairness, Johnson’s offense was The Greatest Show on Turf compared to this season’s. Too bad, because the relationship between Johnson and the Hurts family was a nice story.

(11) Kellen Moore: Ran the ball with Saquon, gave awful press conferences and immediately got a head-coaching job in New Orleans. Nice life.

(12) Kevin Patullo: Welp.

So yeah, unless it’s Daboll, that would be 13 coordinators in 12 years for Jalen Hurts. Part of me is Team Content and would like to see him get to 20 coordinators in 19 years, that would be pretty wild. But the Eagles fan in me would like to see Jalen get some stability around him. It certainly worked with Steichen.

Stability is hard when you are a successful team with a CEO coach. As the Eagles have dealt with, offensive coordinators from those teams tend to get head-coaching jobs.

Oh well. It’s the offseason in Philadelphia, which means the Eagles are searching for somebody new to call the plays for Jalen Hurts.

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That’s right! A second Big Story! I believe this is our new record.

Over the past week, we have updated y’all on any additional Bo Bichette news. When we left off, The Most Important Zoom Meeting Ever happened on Monday. We are light on details, but Jon Heyman reported that The Most Important Zoom Meeting Ever “went well” and that Bichette admires the Phillies’ “first-class organization.” Everyone knows how important class is to me. Well done, Mr. Middleton.

On Anthony’s show, Bob Nightengale provided a grain of salt by pointing out that it was only a Zoom. If things are actually nearing the finish line, would Bichette not have come to South Philly? Maybe he could have been met by cheering electricians, like Jim Thome? Anyway, a fair point by Bob.

But we have not yet discussed the whole proposition of signing Bichette in the newsy. Let’s rectify that today, there is a lot to chew on here.

Quick Biographical Notes

Offensive profile

Primarily, Bichette is gonna get you some base hits.

With the exception of one year, Bichette has done that consistently. Across his first five seasons, Bichette sported an .826 OPS despite only decent power numbers (Bichette is a low to mid-20s homer guy over a full season) and rarely walking. And that is because he generally makes a lot of contact. Despite not having crazy-high bat speed, Bichette’s bat-to-ball skills are pretty undeniable. He does not swing-and-miss and strike out a lot, and he generally hits the ball pretty hard.

Bichette certainly timed his walk year correctly. In 2024, he battled injuries and posted career-lows across the board. But in 2025, he bounced back with arguably the best full season of his career before getting hurt in September. The strikeout rate went down and the walk rate went up. Bichette had a great year, and just as importantly, he showed that 2024 was an aberration.

Everyone in Philadelphia loves the idea of adding an impact right bat to this lineup, ideally one to protect Bryce Harper. I do not know where Bichette would be deployed — Tyler batted around the topic here — but he does not profile as the traditional big bopper to protect Bryce. But still, he would clearly bolster the lineup. I am envisioning a Trea Turner-ish impact with better bat-to-ball and much less speed.

Defensive profile

This is where it gets tricky.

Bichette played shortstop his entire career before returning at second base in this past season’s World Series. Well, that was a glimpse of his future because Bichette is not a shortstop anymore. While you might describe Trea’s defense as “polarizing,” Bichette’s is not. It’s just bad. Tyler talked about that here.

So, Bichette would likely have to move to second or third base. I am picturing Bobby Dickerson channeling Ron Washington on that Zoom, talking about the move, saying, “It’s incredibly hard.” If Alec Bohm was jettisoned in this hypothetical, the only question is if Bichette would play second or third base. The latter would require your current second baseman, who is very good at playing defense at that position, to move to the hot corner.

And oh yeah, Bichette has Bohm-type speed on the basepaths. Not a burner.

Fit with the roster

Over the years, it feels like much of the Phillies’ roster building has been Bryce Harper-driven. And maybe Bryce will be involved with this one as well, as there were some reports of Phillies players texting Bichette at his wedding.

But the main recruiter might be someone the Phillies just added, and not a player at all: Don Mattingly. In a story from 2023, there is a line that reads: Meanwhile, it’s hard to pry apart Mattingly and Bo Bichette once they’re talking baseball in the dugout.

Bichette gave Mattingly a big hug after the Blue Jays’ devastating Game 7 loss. If he signs here, the Mattingly connection will be a big story. Basically, Preston Mattingly got Bo Bichette here because he got his dad here.

This question can be asked in two different ways. Let’s look at both of them.

(1) Financially: There are three big boppers left that could command nine figures on the open market: Kyle Tucker, Bichette and Cody Bellinger. Probably in that order, in terms of how much they will get paid.

And the teams that are out there:

The Phillies go about it the opposite way than the Dodgers do: They are willing to add years to lower the AAV. Just since 2019, they gave Bryce Harper 13 years, Trea Turner 11 years and Aaron Nola 7 years. A lot of other franchises do not operate that way.

At just 28 years old, adding a few years to Bichette’s contract does not seem completely reckless. We are probably talking between five and seven years.

Of course, the easiest thing to do positionally is to sign J.T. Realmuto. It seems like those two sides are far apart, even though we do not have any public negotiating yet. It seems like J.T. is the one who is being unreasonable, but we will not know until we see the offers from the Phillies.

I am not an expert in the finances of baseball, but right now, the Phillies seem to have budgeted for Realmuto. Let’s say they want to pay Realmuto $15 million per year. If they were able to trade Alec Bohm ($10.2 million, one year) and do not sign Realmuto, then you might be able to get pretty close to Bichette’s AAV.

But the issue with that is…

(2) On the field: After seemingly every quality start, a Phillies pitcher stands in the locker room and lauds Realmuto for the work he does with them. I do not know how much to weigh that factor, but obviously Realmuto has done well with Zack Wheeler and Cris Sanchez.

And if the Phillies do not re-sign Realmuto, are you seriously gonna start the season with a Marchán-Stubbs timeshare? That would be pretty rough. Maybe you could sign a cheaper option — Victor Caratini is a name that people have thrown around — but you would likely be taking a step back at catcher. Maybe a big one.

Down the line, I would wonder what the Phillies do with Aidan Miller. Maybe Miller or Trea Turner go to the outfield. Something to think about, at least.

I do not know what the Phillies should do here. But it does seem like Bichette might raise the ceiling of this team (improving the lineup), while lowering the floor in some ways (hole at catcher, messing with the defense).

One argument for signing Bichette is that this Phillies core has been together for a while, and a shake-up could certainly help matters. Justin Crawford and Andrew Painter could bring some new blood to the mix, but Bichette would guarantee you a new character to show your fans every night.

I mentioned Team Content earlier. A Bichette addition certainly would make things more interesting, but in the offseason and once the games start. Plus, the Phillies have $38 million of Taijuan Walker and Nick Castellanos coming off the books next year.

How about Mike Tomlin stepping down in Pittsburgh? The AFC North is gonna look a whole lot different next season, with (*checks notes*) Zac Taylor as the elder statesman.

This closing scene from Hard Knocks might have been scripted, but I loved it.

We will get back to the Flyers (7:30 p.m., TNT) and Sixers (7:00 p.m., ESPN) tonight. Flyers are in Buffalo, Sixers are at home against Cleveland.

Also, RIP Bill Courtney. The Temple Owls are rolling after taking their lumps in Big Five play, have a huge game against Memphis tonight, and Courtney, their assistant coach, suddenly passes away.

Heartbreaking. Go Owls, win it for Bill.

Your tentative Wednesday schedule at PHLY:

Let’s make it a good one.

Rich Hofmann
Daily Newsletter Editor
PHLY SPORTS