Philadelphia Eagles HC Doug Pederson remains confident in Nick Foles
Philadelphia Eagles head coach Doug Pederson isn’t turning his back on his quarterback, Nick Foles.
It’s been the strangest month of football. Fans of the Philadelphia Eagles have witnessed their team go 3-1 in their final four games. Unfortunately, in the process, they lost their starting quarterback and potential MVP, Carson Wentz, and his replacement, Nick Foles, hasn’t given the Philly faithful much of a reason to cheer. Eagles head coach Doug Pederson and his staff have a ton of work to do.
During this four-game stretch, the Eagles secured home-field advantage throughout the playoffs and have assured themselves of one thing. The road to the Super Bowl, at least in the NFC, will travel through Lincoln Financial Field. Still, that won’t mean much if the hometown crowd is as dead as they’ve been in the last two games and Foles and the offense perform as they have done in Philly’s last two outings.
It appears, at least on the surface, that just about everyone’s given up.
The head coach is still confident.
Don’t throw Pederson into the category of down and out. He’s continuing to back his quarterback, and he sounds just as confident as he’s always been.
Take a look.
Video courtesy of the Philadelphia Eagles official YouTube page
That all sounds cool and everything, but how much of that just falls under the category of ‘saying the right things’? The Eagles begin their playoff push in two weeks, and it’s hard to imagine this team returning to play at the level they played at in the beginning of the season. No amount of reps can transform Foles into something he isn’t and cure the offensive woes that quickly can they?
Then again, every team in the NFC seems to have some deficiencies. Pederson put it another way.
Take a look.
"Am I concerned? I’m not concerned. I’ve still got a lot of confidence in [Foles]. It’s not one person, one guy. There’s enough to go around. It’s tough in that situation where you know you’re going to maybe only get a quarter, maybe a couple series, and you’re coming out… I’ve still got a lot of confidence in the guys."
Foles, despite going 19 of 38 for 163 yards against the Oakland Raiders and completing four of 11 passes against the Dallas Cowboys (both games at home), hasn’t lost confidence in himself either. Maybe that’s the most important thing. Sure, he’s thrown a touchdown, but he’s also thrown two ugly interceptions. As stated, he seems prepared to work through all of this. His confidence in himself hasn’t changed from the first press conference until now.
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Here’s what he had to say.
"I’ve played a lot of football… I also know that throughout my career and my life I haven’t always played great games. I’ve been in games where execution hasn’t always gone like we wanted to, and the key is you remain confident because you know who you are. You know you’re going to prepare every day to do everything to the best of your ability. … We went out there and played as hard as we could. We didn’t execute, but that’s stuff we can fix."
Everyone hopes you’re right Nick. There’s a ton of work to do between now and the divisional round.