The Philadelphia Eagles Cannot Give Up On Nick Foles
Credit: Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports
Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Nick Foles has not played particularly well throughout the first five weeks of the season. Foles has failed to repeat the high standards that he reached last season. I believe some of the criticism of Foles has been harsh; whilst he has not been very good I do not think the offense in general has been great. Foles does deserves the blame for his own mistakes that he is making at quarterback but I know he can play a lot better. Due to his sub par play, I have heard over the past week some talk that Foles should be benched in favor of quarterback Mark Sanchez.
Benching Foles right now would be a monumental mistake by the Eagles.
You cannot simply ignore how good Foles was in 2013 already. If the Eagles decide to bench Foles and go with Mark Sanchez at quarterback, they can never go back to Foles.
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The Foles-era in Philadelphia would be over five weeks after a historically good 2013 season. The Eagles would then have to hope that Sanchez can play at a high level for the remainder of the season. Sanchez has never been consistent throughout his career and we have yet to see him take a snap in the regular season for the Eagles. Sanchez total
grade from his 4 year career is -69. That is extremely low. He never had a positive grade for any of his 4 seasons.
Yes, Sanchez looked good in the preseason. Michael Vick looked perfect in last years preseason, how did he look in the regular season? I really liked the Sanchez signing and I think he is a great backup to have but that does not mean he will be a good enough starter for the Eagles. It is hard to judge anyone in preseason properly, especially quarterbacks.
I think the Eagles offense is slightly overrated at the moment by a number of fans. The weapons are not playing as well as they can; even tight end Zach Ertz has done very little over the past three weeks. I think the weapons Foles has may actually be overrated. Running back LeSean McCoy has looked terrible and the offensive line has simply not been very good. Putting all of the blame on Foles’ back is unfair as the offense isn’t clicking at the moment, especially in the redzone where Chip Kelly’s play calling is looking suspect.
Nobody knows how good Nick Foles really is or whether he is at future at quarterback for the Eagles. If the Eagles bench him now, we will never know. People forget that Foles only played five games in his rookie season and didn’t play every game last season. Foles is only 25 years old, young quarterbacks will make mistakes and have games where they don’t play very well. He also is without his center Jason Kelce; I think Kelce’s injury is the main reason why the Eagles offense is struggling at the moment.
I am not making excuses for Foles. He has not played very well. I thought as a passer Foles had a relatively okay game on Sunday against the Rams, he looked a lot more accurate than he did in the previous weeks. However, his fumble showed a complete lack of awareness and gave the Rams a chance to come back. His interception was also a badly thrown ball which he did not need to throw.
Unless Foles has a couple of absolutely terrible games in a row, he should be allowed to play out this season. Are this team really good enough right now with Sanchez at quarterback to win the Super Bowl? Even if Foles and the offense plays lights out for the rest of year, is the defense going to be good enough to beat very good teams and win the Super Bowl? The way the secondary is playing at the moment, I would say no.
I therefore see no benefit to pulling Foles and playing Sanchez. If Sanchez fails to play very well or plays simply average, the Eagles have huge question marks over the quarterback position. They will probably have to draft one but will not be picking high enough to take any of the top quarterbacks available. I also think Kelly is a big fan of Nick Foles and his toughness; I would be shocked if Kelly has even considered benching Foles.
Chip Kelly’s offense is a quarterback friendly offense; that does not mean that any quarterback can make it work however. We have seen Michael Vick struggle last year, Foles struggle this year and Matt Barkley play poorly last year. You cannot just plug any quarterback into this system, or any NFL system, and automatically expect success straight away. Very few quarterbacks will have previously been in a no-huddle system similar to what Kelly runs and it will take them time to become comfortable in the system.
The best thing for the Eagles as a franchise is that Nick Foles becomes the franchise quarterback. Foles has shown he has the ability in 2013 and that he can get this offense to reach its potential. You can therefore not write him off after a few bad games. Foles has won 11 of his last 13 games as a starter in the regular season, can you really bench a quarterback with that record? Foles must be given the remainder of the year or at least till the Eagles are eliminated from playoff contention to prove his worth to the Eagles. If he fails to improve then at least you know that he is not the quarterback of the future.
Nick Foles has not been good enough but benching him would be the worst possible thing the Eagles could do.