Philadelphia Eagles talk: Nick Foles plays big brother to Cody Kessler

Nick Foles played the ‘big brother’ role and recently offered some kind words to Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Cody Kessler. You’ll want to read about this one.

In a move no one saw coming, the Philadelphia Eagles signed Cody Kessler on May 12th to compete for the role of emergency quarterback with the newly-drafted Clayton Thorson. That gave Philly four quarterbacks that they’d head into the third phase of offseason OTAs with.

There wasn’t anything unusual about that. It’s typically par for the course that an NFL franchise would have about four quarterbacks competing for three roster spots. The only thing that seemed off was there didn’t seem to be a market for Kessler.

There also wasn’t much talk about Philly being interested in a guy who’s entering his fourth NFL season and is already drifting towards the ‘journeyman’ area.

Kessler will be wearing ‘Number 2’ (who knows why he’s wearing David Akers‘ jersey), and he, essentially, switched teams with the man some view as the greatest quarterback in Eagles history, Nick Foles.

Hey winning a Super Bowl will do that for you.

We learned recently that the two got to speak upon Foles’ arrival with the Jacksonville Jaguars, a move that, in part, led to Kessler’s dismissal from the team. There weren’t many who reached out to Kessler to get a comment, but one would imagine that he was probably bummed out. Always the class act, Foles, who knows a little about wanting to give up, reached out to offer the young man some encouragement.

Here’s how Kessler remembers it:

"It was a 20 to 30 minute phone call. He told me about some of the stuff he went through in his past experiences. (Foles said) ’it’s going to suck now but there’s going to be brighter times ahead, you’ve got to believe that and you’ve got to stick to that.’"

Though some have already penciled in Nate Sudfeld as the second quarterback, Kessler could shake things up with a strong camp and preseason.

Might Foles’ advice be the kick starter to new life in the NFL? Could Kessler work his way up to the backup role and outplay Sudfeld? Is he, simply, just buying time and auditioning for yet another NFL franchise? We’ll learn soon enough.

This story is just starting to grow legs.