PHILADELPHIA — In football circles, Chan Gailey was highly regarded as a reliable and progressive offensive mind. The now-retired coach was appreciated for his adaptability, versatility, and innovation.
He was known for catering his X’s and O’s to his team’s Jimmys and Joes.
Gailey also happened to be Kevin Patullo’s mentor.
“He’s probably been my greatest influence on my past,” Patullo, the Eagles’ recently minted offensive coordinator, said before an indoor practice during OTAs at NovaCare Complex on Wednesday.
Among Gailey’s many stops over his 46-year career were as OC and quarterbacks coach for the John Elway Broncos in the late ‘80s, head coach of the Dallas Cowboys in the late ‘90s, and head coach of the Buffalo Bills in the early 2010s. He also served as a coordinator with the Kansas City Chiefs, New York Jets and Miami Dolphins, and as head coach at Georgia Tech and Samford.
“I was with Chan a couple of different places,” said Patullo, whom Nick Sirianni promoted to replace the departed Kellen Moore. “It started in Kansas City. I was with Herm Edwards, (I was) a young coach then. (Gailey) had just come from Georgia Tech at that point. And just going through that with him was very unique.
“You know, in 2008, we lost a couple quarterbacks. We ended up having Tyler Thigpen come in. And I’ll never forget, we get into a staff room, and the walls are all white, nothing up there. (Gailey) goes, ‘All right, we’ve got to figure out a new offense for this week!’”
Gailey and his staff instituted the no-huddle pistol, which puts the quarterback 3½ yards behind center, and the running back 3½ yards directly behind the QB. It employs a diverse, run-option game with a mobile quarterback while changing tempo and using pre-snap “eye candy” to confuse defenses and keep them off balance.
Urban Meyer ran a variation of it in Florida with Tim Tebow. And with a QB like Jalen Hurts – who unlike Tebow, can actually throw as well as run – a running back like Saquon Barkley, and receivers like A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith and Dallas Goedert, such an approach could be explosive in myriad dimensions.
Presuming, of course, that the Eagles choose to use it on occasion.
But the larger point is about innovative spirit and maximizing personnel.
“Nobody knew what the pistol was in the NFL,” said Patullo, who has been Sirianni’s right-hand man since the Eagles’ head coach was in Indianapolis. “We were successful for the most part. … We moved the ball with a bunch of guys that we didn’t know, really, if we could do that with. And so, him being able to show, ‘Look, we do what we have to do to win. It doesn’t have to look a certain way.’ It was huge.
“And then I went to Buffalo with him, and it looked way different. We had (quarterback) Ryan Fitzpatrick there, and we were four-wide, throwing all over the place. … The biggest thing was, ‘Put your players in position. Allow them to be successful and develop dialogue and communication with them.’”
Still, with nearly the entire offensive side of the ball returning for the Eagles in 2025-26, Patullo doesn’t see a need for radical change, especially since there’s a built-in familiarity between him and the players. And that includes Hurts.
“I mean, I’ve been here with him since day one and it’s been great. He works extremely hard, we all know that,” Patullo said of Hurts. “He’s super detailed in what he does, and the biggest thing with him is he always wants to get better, and that’s awesome. He’s willing to listen to anybody about anything. If he feels like it’s going to get him better, he’s willing to take it and try it. Then the best part of it is the dialogue after. We had one practice yesterday, he’s willing to try anything and then we can have dialogue after and kind of go from there. He’s a great player for a reason. His work ethic speaks for itself.”
Such a mindset has been welcome to Hurts, who has had to adjust to a revolving door of offensive coordinators throughout his career.
“I don’t think we’ll change too much,” Patullo said. “It’s the Eagles offense. It’s what we’ve kind of been running essentially the last four years, and we’ll kind of keep it in that grouping of words. Just because of the continuity of everybody, it’ll be a lot easier and then we can make adjustments or add stuff within things because that kind of baseline language is already built.
“Hey, we’re really good at this. Let’s bring this to the table and try this and see where we can take it. I think, really, when you look at just our staff as a whole, we’ve added some new coaches, so they bring some other layers to it too, and the knowledge of what they have from their background. I think as we go forward, as we build this thing together as a staff, you’ll see some new wrinkles here and there, but more so it’s just kind of building on what our players do best.”
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Follow Christiaan DeFranco on X at @the_defranc.
Source: Berkshire mont