Jan 11, 2026; Philadelphia, PA, USA; San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan shakes hands with Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni after an NFC Wild Card Round game at Lincoln Financial Field. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-Imagn Images
Sometimes, when you are a soldier in the thick of the battle, you have a hard time understanding the strategy.
So, it's not Saquon Barkley's fault that he inadvertently dimed out his offensive coaches with an answer to a question following the Eagles brutal, 23-19 loss to the San Francisco 49ers in an NFC Wild Card game.
Asked why the Eagles offense seemed to be too conservative, too frequently this season, Barkley disagreed with the assessment.
"I don't think we were playing conservative," he said. "I think it comes down to execution. A lot of the same calls we had, I know it was a new offensive coordinator and new guys, but, like, we kind of stuck with the same script. to be honest, of what we did last year.
"It's easy to say that (you're too conservative) if you're not making the plays. ... If we're making the plays, that's not the case. Nobody is going to say we're being conservative."
The follow up question, was perfect. Barkley was asked if it's harder to make plays if you constantly run stuff people have seen before.
He stuck to his guns.
"Everybody runs the same thing in this league, you just dress it up differently," he said.
Saquon Barkley’s full postgame comments @SportsRadioWIP pic.twitter.com/xtYC7SmRXx
If that's the case, 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan dressed his offense in a multi-layered, colorful, designer suit, while Nick Sirianni and Kevin Patullo dressed the Eagles offense in the Emperor's New Clothes.
And if you don't know that Hans Christian Andersen folktale, in short, the emperor was walking through the kingdom naked, even though he thought he was wearing a lavish, invisible suit.
It's the reason why Shanahan, was able to get the 49ers offense to click and score 23 points on the normally staunch Eagles defense with Demarcus Robinson as his primary wide receiver, Jake Tonges as his primary tight end, after George Kittle tore his Achilles' tendon on his only catch of the game in the first half, and with all-everything running back Christian McCaffery being held to just 48 yards rushing on 15 carries.
Meanwhile, the Eagles $128 million offense finished with less than 20 points in a game for the ninth time this season.
Shanahan pulled out all the stops. He ran a double reverse, wide receiver pass that resulted in a 29-yard touchdown strike from Jauan Jennings to McCaffery.
JAUAN JENNINGS TD PASS TO CMC
SFvsPHI on FOX/FOX One
Stream on @NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/18VxTpTKgj
The game-winning score had McCaffrey run a Texas route, but starting from the opposite side of the backfield.
That's not something that you usually see. The route is common, but from where McCaffrey started, it was a new wrinkle.
Great route from Christian McCaffrey. Crossed up Nakobe Dean.
Nice job by Brock Purdy to climb the pocket pic.twitter.com/1bp3sOkR1r
Even his in-game adjustments were innovative, turning to fullback Kyle Juszczyk for four targets in more of a tight end role once Kittle was carted off the field.
It was savvy. It was schemed. It was game-planned beautifully.
He used Skyy Moore, on a jet sweep earlier that only gained three yards, but the play was designed to set up the double reverse touchdown pass, to get the Eagles to bite on what they assumed was the same play being run a second time.
Shanahan also had an opening drive that picked on Eagles All-Pro cornerback Quinyon Mitchell. All three passes Purdy completed on the opening drive beat Mitchell in coverage, including the touchdown pass to Robinson to put the 49ers on the board first.
Demarcus Robinson touchdown.
This is his legacy game, and some early signs of a blow out ensuing.
Didn’t expect this….. 🤯 pic.twitter.com/HvepFgPu0r
Mitchell eventually punished San Francisco quarterback Brock Purdy for throwing his way too frequently, picking him off twice, but all the Eagles came away with from those two interceptions was a 41-yard Jake Elliott field goal.
The reason? Because the Eagles didn't do anything different when they had the football. They kept going back to the same, nearly dried-up well they have for two seasons.
They kept believing that because it worked last year that it would work again. It never did.
Earlier this year, former New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees called the Eagles offense "boring." That should have been a clear sign for Sirianni and Patullo that something wasn't right.
Drew Brees brings the heat in his First Take debut, calling the Eagles offense "boring" after not putting Jalen Hurts in his top NFL quarterbacks right now.
"I respect Philly, they are winning games... I can't stand to watch that offense. It's the most boring offense." pic.twitter.com/Bj2Tk6iSQ2
But they stuck with it. They died on the hill with the same, stale, schematic.
However, Sirianni balked at it being considered conservative.
"I think that's always the go-to," Sirianni said to reporters in his postgame presser. "If it goes the way you want it to in the first half and then not in the second half, that's the go-to. People think you take your foot off the gas. (In the second half) we were playing balanced. We got the run game going a little bit. We were trying to mix our play actions and trying to get our passes to create explosives. At the end of the day, we didn't create enough explosives."
First of all, they scored six points in the second half. They had three consecutive three-and-outs to start the half. And they didn't create enough explosives because they were too predictable.
49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh threw a couple wrinkles at the Eagles in the first half. He brought some pressure. He played cover zero, which opened up the whole middle of the field.
The Eagles didn't take advantage of the middle, but, the Niners didn't get home and sack Hurts, so Saleh started to sit back in zone coverage.
And basically just stayed there the rest of the game.
Why? Because the Eagles didn't do anything different to force him to go to man-to-man. He basically made his depleted defense, with no pass rush and playing their fourth, fifth and sixth string linebackers, say to the Eagles, "Beat our zone," and they couldn't.
"It's been a common thing," Barkley told reporters. "It's easy to be like, 'We expect to get to the playoff and it's going to change.' It just didn't, you know?
"You tell me ... we played, what, 18 games this year. You tell me a time on offense we put together two halves. I bet you it was under five."
And why?
Because the offense was too vanilla. It was too predictable.
It will likely cost Patullo his job, but the Eagles need to re-evaluate everything. It's not just the offensive coordinator.
The head coach needs to be less stubborn to his offensive schematic. He needs to be aggressive and take risks. All too often he was driven by the notion that protecting the football and winning the turnover battle is what wins football games.
While generally it does, it's not foolproof. The 49ers turned the ball over twice. The Eagles didn't turn the ball over. Who won?
There needs to be a better concentration on discipline. The Eagles had a few good plays that were negated by penalties. They took seven penalties, the 49ers just one.
And that lack of discipline wasn't a one-off. The Eagles had so many games that were impacted by undisciplined play. And speaking of undisciplined, there is way too much drama that plays out on the sideline involving A.J. Brown. The Eagles might not be able - or willing - to deal with another year of this.
But the most damning play of all was the final one. On 4th and 11 from the 49ers 21-yard line, the Eagles lined up and took a picture of the 49ers defense before calling timeout.
Having an idea of what defense the Niners would be in, Sirianni, Patullo and Hurts huddled on the sideline. It was a lengthy conversation. Hurts was doing a lot of talking. Patullo made a call. It seemed like Sirianni checked with Hurts if he felt good about the play.
Jalen couldn’t believe what he was hearing on the last play call. pic.twitter.com/sghY5zsaI3
The Eagles then came out and ran four go routes into cover four - a defense designed to take away go routes.
The play was doomed from the start. Hurts ended up throwing into triple coverage, because he had nothing at his disposal. The pass was batted down, and with it, the season was over.
"I didn't make the play," Hurts said. "I own it. I own it all."
Eric Kendricks has over 1,100 career tackles and 11 INT's, but wasn't on an NFL roster top open the 2025 NFL season. He made the final play to oust the defending-champion Eagles, nearly picking off this 4th & 11 intended for Dallas Goedert.#49ers #Eaglesvs49ers #NFLWildCard pic.twitter.com/cwssuQC0ro
As for the offense as a whole?
"Obviously you want more consistency," Hurts said. "There's a desire to improve steadily throughout the year, but it's hard to look at a big picture perspective right now. I think just having the opportunity to go make something happen and not doing so for whatever reason, those are the things we all have to improve."
That last part, he's right about.
Because in a do-or-die playoff game, one coach went deep into the playbook for creative options, pulling out all the stops to survive and advance with a shorthanded team.
On the other side they just went with what used to work last season, because of an institutional arrogance that swore all season that what they were doing was right.
And as the story of the Emperor has taught us, that's the difference between looking good and being exposed.
