KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Let’s look at this latest Philadelphia Eagles win like a food critic, shall we?

And let’s allow starting right tackle Lane Johnson to fire off the first review.

“It’s like coming home to a home-cooked meal and the steak’s a little bit tough,” he said.

Hey, there’s at least food on the table, isn’t there? The Eagles plopped a second helping of victory on our plate. It’s gonna take a chainsaw to cut through, but the nutrition facts say “2-0.” So, what the hell, let’s take a bite.

Arrowhead Stadium is usually where visiting teams go hungry, remember? The Kansas City Chiefs own the NFL’s highest win percentage at home since their renowned cooker of defenses, Patrick Mahomes, became their starting quarterback in 2018. After Sunday’s 20-17 win, the Eagles are now 5-2 in “The Kingdom” since the turn of the century.

But back to that bite of victory, because that thing’s having trouble going down. This stat’s particularly hard to swallow: the Eagles were outgained 296-216 in total offensive yards. That morsel of production is tied for the fourth fewest by any Eagles team that still managed to win since 2000, per TruMedia. None of the other winners made the playoffs. In a hyped-up game that was billed as the Super Bowl LIX rematch of the Super Bowl LVIII rematch, the Eagles’ offense revealed it is still figuring out its menu under first-time offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo.

The food eventually got to the table, but, boy, were there plenty of shattered plates and busted chairs along the path. Jalen Hurts threw for his fewest passing yards (101) in a full game as a starter. A large chunk of it came on a 28-yard launch to DeVonta Smith that sealed the game. Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo blitzed Hurts on 12 of his 22 dropbacks. As a derivative, Smith and A.J. Brown saw more man coverage, which they relish. They relish it so much that they both said the Eagles erred in spending the early portion of the game “chasing” the big play, the moment when either of them would break free for the long ball.

The big plays evaded the Eagles both through the air and on the ground. Hurts was truly sacked only once (the other occurred after tight end Grant Calcaterra recovered Hurts’ fumble on the game’s first play). The sixth-year quarterback spent most of the game scanning downfield with good protection, finding nothing and settling for shorter throws.

Meanwhile, the Chiefs and All-Pro defensive tackle Chris Jones stagnated Philly’s inside zone runs. So, the Eagles switched to the outside and wrestled for results. Saquon Barkley, held under 100 yards rushing for the second straight week, broke through on a 13-yard touchdown for the game’s first points. But he spent most of the game searching for that big lane that never opened. He later chided his lack of conditioning for heading to the sideline after the Eagles began a third-quarter drive by handing him the ball four straight times.

“I gotta do a better job of staying in,” said Barkley, who finished with 88 yards on 22 carries. “I gotta do a better job within that moment when we’re leaning on them, to be able to stand in for those guys and crack a big one.”

As the Eagles chased “the big one,” they traded punts with the Chiefs three times. Johnson called it “a lot of stalemating.” Confidence in the offense’s potency waned. With two timeouts in his pocket and the Brotherly Shove in his playbook, Eagles coach Nick Sirianni opted to let almost 30 seconds run off the clock and send Jake Elliott out on a fourth-and-1 at Kansas City’s 35 to end the first half with a field goal that wound up being 58 yards after a false start penalty.

Sirianni said he asked himself a question: “Can we score a touchdown on this drive?” The Eagles had to burn their first timeout to avoid a delay of game penalty. That left them with two timeouts. If they snuck Hurts, they’d be down to one. They’d still need to gain 30 yards — which they’d failed to do on three of their first-half drives.

“At that point, I’m thinking, ‘I’m probably not getting a touchdown on this drive,’” Sirianni said.

The Eagles haven’t exactly picked up where they left off last season on offense, but it’s still early in the season. (Denny Medley / Imagn Images)

That assessment doesn’t reflect well on an offense that returned all but one starter from the system that won the city’s second Super Bowl. The biggest distinction is at coordinator. It’s fair to point out that it’s only Patullo’s second game. It took an urgent reassessment during the Week 5 bye for the 2024 Eagles to establish their identity under Kellen Moore.

Hurts indirectly defended Patullo after the game by asking a pair of rhetorical questions: “Who knows who they are in Week 2? Who knows who they are in Week 1?” Such questions don’t ring as hollow as they did during the 2023 collapse, partly because the players appear to be self-aware about the issue.

Hurts also agreed that they spent too much time chasing the big play.

“It’s something that I think when you come into a game, there’s a level of patience you have to have, right?” said Hurts, who was 15-of-22 passing for 101 yards and rushed nine times for 15 yards. “You’ve got to take what they give you while being the aggressor and playing with aggression. And I think we were not as patient as we could have been earlier in the game. I’d have to really assess the film to be able to follow that up. But I think in the second half, we kind of let things come to us, and we played with great instinct.”

Smith supplied both ends of the spectrum. The Eagles went chasing on a third-and-8 situation at the Chiefs’ 33 at the start of the third quarter, and Smith went down hard after a deep pass from Hurts fell incomplete along the left sideline. Smith briefly went into the medical tent while Elliott booted a 51-yarder that gave them a 13-10 lead. Then they let the big play happen.

Rookie safety Drew Mukuba’s goal-line interception of Mahomes gave the Eagles the ball at their 41. Six plays later, on third-and-10, Hurts anticipated Spagnuolo sending the house — and the Chiefs did. Hurts checked the play to Smith and got crushed as he unfurled the long ball Smith snagged at the Chiefs’ 3. Four plays later, Hurts snuck in for the two-score lead that sealed the team’s second win.

“He came down on his back, but he came up in the clutch,” Hurts said of Smith’s two-play pairing.

Sirianni is seizing moral victories for Hurts’ efficiency as a passer and the offense’s lack of turnovers through two weeks. Sirianni admitted ball-security “is nothing sexy.” He also acknowledged that the passing game must be more explosive. “That’s going to open up everything,” he said.

He has defined explosive plays as runs of 10-plus yards and passes of 16-plus yards. The Eagles have totaled 10 such plays through two games, second fewest in that span only to the 2023 season (9) within the Sirianni era.

The Eagles pride themselves on mastering the little things. And those things hardened their proverbial steak, too. Right guard Tyler Steen was driven back into Hurts during the offense’s second drive, complicating a third-and-10 throw that fell incomplete. On the fourth drive, center Cam Jurgens was flagged for holding, negating a third-and-5 scramble by Hurts and leading to an eventual punt.

Patullo will enter his third week with the undefeated Los Angeles Rams scheduled to arrive at Lincoln Financial Field on Sunday. With another road trip to play the Tampa Bay Buccaneers afterward, Patullo won’t have the benefit of a Week 5 bye. The Eagles won’t have a break until Week 9.

“I think the expectation is that you’re gonna pick up right where you left off,” Sirianni said. “There’s steps to this, right? There’s steps for all the teams that are playing right now, and there’s steps to get better. So as you’re getting better, our goal is to play our best football by the end of the year. As you’re getting better, find ways to win, get better, and then repeat.”

(Photo: David Eulitt / Getty Images)