The San Francisco 49ers pulled off a 23-19 upset over the Philadelphia Eagles in the wild-card game. From the opening kick, the Eagles’ offense looked stuck in the mud again. The issues about their stalled offense have hovered all season, and this time, they finally cost the Birds a game. Now, the question isn’t just what went wrong, but who will pay the price, starting with offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo.

“There will be time to evaluate everyone’s performance,” he said after the game, when asked about Patullo’s future. “Right now, I feel for all our guys in the locker room, all the players, all the coaches, the front office, everybody that works so hard, the fans they come out and support us, Mr. Lurie, I just feel for all of them. There’ll be time to evaluate everything.”

Still, the numbers from Sunday night paint a rough picture. After moving the ball well early, the Eagles managed just 114 yards in the second half, with 87 of those yards coming on the final two drives.

Before that, three second-half possessions ended in quick three-and-outs, an ugly trend Philly leads the league in. The inability to sustain drives, as shown by their league-leading number of three-and-outs, proved to be their Achilles’ heel.

The defense opened up opportunities for the team, but the offense couldn’t capitalize on them. For instance, cornerback Quinyon Mitchell intercepted 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy twice, but the Eagles scored only three points off those turnovers.

Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts finished 20-of-35 for 168 yards, one touchdown, and a 79.2 passer rating. The offense gained a total of 307 yards, including 167 passing yards and 140 rushing yards. They even went 2-for-3 in the red zone and 3-for-5 on fourth down, but stalled a lot on third down because of drops and traditional play-calling.

Meanwhile, there were only a few positives to cling to. Saquon Barkley topped 100 yards on the ground, and DeVonta Smith hauled in eight catches for 70 yards. Yet, the bad outweighed the good. Four third-down drops crushed momentum, with A.J. Brown responsible for most of them. At this point, one thing feels obvious. This offense under Kevin Patullo is not good enough.

In fact, the season-long numbers back that up. Philly finished 24th in total offense at 311.2 yards per game. On top of that, they ranked 23rd through the air, 18th on the ground, and just 19th in scoring. For a team with playoff goals, that is simply not good enough.

Those season-long numbers were a direct reflection of what transpired on the field Sunday. After the game, Sirianni pointed right at that reality.

Nick Sirianni blames bad coaching for the Eagles’ loss

The Eagles walked off Wild Card Weekend with more questions than answers, and the noise around the City of Brotherly Love grew loud fast. The loss to the Niners capped a season that never fully found its footing, and the loss drew immediate criticism. Naturally, most of that heat landed on coach Nick Sirianni. This time, though, the head coach did not push it aside.

After the game, Sirianni faced it head-on and broke down where things slipped away for Philly.

“It felt like that was kind of our story as the year progressed,” Sirianni said. “Good first half. Didn’t do a good enough job coaching. Didn’t do a good enough job executing in the second half. In that third quarter, particularly, some penalties got us behind the sticks, and we had a hard time overcoming them.”

That failure to execute was most glaring when the defense handed the offense golden opportunities. Brock Purdy tossed two interceptions, but the Eagles’ sputtering offense managed to turn those gifts into just three points. After early touchdowns on two of their first three drives, the offense slowed down and never recovered. Against a banged-up San Francisco defense, that simply cannot happen.

Then came the moment everyone circled.

Facing fourth-and-11 with 43 seconds left, Sirianni burned his first timeout, raising the stakes. When QB Jalen Hurts forced a throw into triple coverage and it fell incomplete, the Niners drained the clock. With that extra timeout still in hand, the Birds might have forced one more punt. Instead, Sirianni and the Eagles gave critics plenty to chew on.

So, Sirianni added, “Those are things that we always work our a-s off to try to fix any situation and every situation that we can. And you know what? At the end of the day, we didn’t do a good enough job of doing that. And that starts with me.”

With the season over, Sirianni now heads into a tense offseason where his own job security and that of his staff will be the first and most critical situation to be sorted out.