The Redemption of Nick Foles and the Vindication of the Philadelphia Eagles
The Eagles were supposed to be done as soon as Carson Wentz went down. The Patriots… they were never done. They still aren’t done. Down 28-3 in the Super Bowl they’re not done. Down 10 points in the fourth quarter of the AFC Championship game with their best receiver out and a 40-year old quarterback playing with 12 stitches in his hand and they’re not done. And that, folks, is your 2018 Super Bowl: the unexpected Eagles and the very much expected Patriots.
It seems like people forgot that Nick Foles once threw 27 TDs and only 2 INTs in a season, back in 2013. That was in the Chip Kelly days of Philadelphia, that high-paced offence that was gonna suit Michael Vick so well except it was Nick Foles who thrived as he filled in for an injured Vick. They were 3-5 and they won 7 of their last 8 games to make the playoffs. He had a game in Oakland with a perfect passer rating and seven touchdown passes! Even in the playoffs Foles was still pretty good, throwing for 195 yards with two scores and no picks but the New Orleans Saints won it on a last gasp field goal.
You’ve gotta get it done in multiple seasons to prove yourself but plenty of quarterbacks starting in the league right now are incapable of having a year like Foles did in 2013. He was dead average in 2014 before getting injured but plenty of guys have gone through that sophomore slump thing as a starter and come out the other side. But Foles never got the chance to overcome it, he was traded to St Louis for San Bradford and that didn’t really work out for either team. Weirdly, after that 2013 season, he turned into a quarterback who couldn’t protect the ball. He lost his starting gig to Case Keenum and requested a trade when the team drafted Jared Goff. A year as a backup with the Chiefs went by and he signed on as a backup with the Eagles again this season.
Point being that it’s not like Foles was incapable of doing what he did to the Vikings in that NFC Champ game. He’s flashed brilliance in the past and just because he struggled to back it up doesn’t mean it’d never happen again. Pro Bowl Foles, baby!
He certainly didn’t do this during the regular season, but remember that the Eagles were all but already booked into the playoffs when Wentz did his ACL. In fact the very game that Wentz was injured was the one they sealed the division in – all Foles had to do was complete six passes for 42 yards to hold on. He threw four scores on the woeful Giants, he was average against the Raiders but they still won. The entire team barely tried in the 6-0 defeat to Dallas at the end. And that’s the thing: Foles didn’t do much special but he didn’t need to. The Eagles played within themselves. Call it a good old fashioned hustle if you want, we never saw what Foles had in his bag before anyone had written him off and most people seemed write him off before the diagnosis on Wentz’s knee had even come back.
26 of 33 passing for 352 yards with 3 TDs and zero picks. 141.4 passer rating. Nick Foles was absolutely brilliant against the Vikes. The Eagles came from an early 7-0 deficit to win this thing 38-7 and they were done scoring barely a couple minutes into the fourth quarter. Against the top ranked defence in the league. And with the team playing from in front in that second half, doing all they could to deny the Vikings comeback, Foles was a perfect 11 of 11 for 159 of those yards and 2 of those touchdowns. He dominated on third down. That, my friend, is how to close out a playoff game. Immaculate.
It was stunning how thoroughly the Eagles were able to dismantle a strong Vikings side. You’ve got to say that Mike Zimmer and his team, superb as they’ve been, underestimated what Foles would do and instead they came up against – this is so crazy to say – one of the best playoff quarterback performances in recent times. When that happens you kinda have to grin and bear it, though while Foles has flaunted this play in the past, he’s also flaunted some remarkably inconsistent form as well. The Patriots won’t cut corners in bringing that out of him, they won’t sit back and wait for it. Maybe there are a couple things the Vikes would wish they’d done differently now… granted they were walking a balancing act already with that offence – think of the injuries to Teddy Bridgewater, Sam Bradford and Dalvin Cook. Case Keenum and Nick Foles have crossed paths before, Foles has played two quality playoff games while Zimmer got this stuff outta Keenum for the entire season.
Yet it all might’ve been different had Keenum not thrown that pick to Patrick Robinson, which the Philly corner took back fifty yards for the tying score. They went three and out the next possession before the Eagles drove down the field for the lead. The game was never the same, Keenum was playing from behind and having to air it out. Jerick McKinnon ended up with more catches than rushes and with the Eagles able to adjust to what they were seeing, their defence came up big time.
Look, Foles is the obvious hero after what he did. But the Eagles wouldn’t be going to a Super Bowl with a backup quarterback if they didn’t have playmakers all over the field. We didn’t see a lot of LeGarrette Blount in that game but he did the one thing he always does by driving a red zone rush into the end zone. Jay Ajayi kept chipping away with yards on first down. Then Nelson Agholor, Alshon Jeffrey and Torrey Smith all had at least three catches and 50+ yards – that’s a super underrated set of wideouts. And tight end Zach Ertz topped them all with eight catches for 93 yards.
Their NFC East rivals the Dallas Cowboys are famous for their offensive line. Well, there’s an extremely strong argument that the Eagles’ front line outplayed them over the course of 2017 (actually, it's not even an argument - it's a fact). Those guys were magnificent again versus the Vikings, there was one sack on Foles here, who was able to pick apart a team that had more interceptions than touchdowns against this season.
Although the real stars of the show are those in that Eagles defence. Jim Schwartz’s lads. The defence that he inherited a couple years back was one of the worst in the NFL and just look at them now. It’s not like they completely overhauled it either, guys like Fletcher Cox, Mychal Kendricks, Malcolm Jenkins… still out there and playing as well as ever. After keeping Matt Ryan and Julio Jones to just 10 points in the win over the Falcons, they stopped the Vikings from scoring at all in the last three quarters. 17 points conceded in eight quarters of playoff football.
Nick Foles might plug it up against a typically clever Pats team. That running game will need to do more, Doug Peterson’s gonna have to get creative. However if the Eagles are going to beat the Patriots in the big show then it’s the defence that needs to get it done. So far so good… and they’re a handy matchup as well.
Nobody conceded fewer rushing yards. Like most top defences, they’re able to get teams off the field without giving up long drives and only the Vikings, Jaguars and Chargers conceded fewer points in the 2017 season. They’re an aggressive unit that tackles well and rarely gets dominated physically. Jalen Mills and Ronald Darby then offer a couple athletic cornerback options and this isn’t so dissimilar from what the Jaguars do as some would think.
The difference being that the Eagles have proved all season that they can make plays going the other way too, big plays from an offence always willing to roll the dice. The Jaguars had a solid lead against the Pats but they couldn’t close it out. They couldn’t get a sustained drive going when they needed one – Blake Bortles was 5/13 for 68 yards in the fourth quarter, going three and out after the Myles Jack fumble recovery and taking a costly sack on their final possession. Can’t say he didn’t have his chances.
Nick Foles isn’t Tom Brady all of a sudden but he can make some passes. He’s got good players around him and the Eagles can do some funky things on offence. Plus they’ve got a bit of speed and aren’t afraid to go for it downfield or on fourth down. The Patriots are obvious favourites but the Eagles shouldn’t be written off. Not by a long stretch, they’ve got little elements of all the teams who gave the Patriots troubles this season. The Jags for one, but there’s a fair bit of early season Kansas City Chiefs in them too and a hint of Panthers in certain other ways.
It’d be a proper stinker if Foles comes out and coughs the ball up a few times, allows the Pats to get in control bright and early, which could definitely happen. Yet considering that they’ve made it all the way to the Super Bowl given the way they were written off – home underdogs in the playoffs as the one-seed! – they’ve already vindicated themselves. And doing so without Carson Wentz has allowed people to see just how deep this team really is. Gonna be a bit weird if Foles wins the Super Bowl then has to be traded or sit on the bench, ay?
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