Foles will start opener, Pederson announces
PHILADELPHIA » Not one full day after refusing to name his Opening Night quarterback on grounds of principle and competitive balance, Doug Pederson Monday ran a reverse.
Nick Foles, the Eagles’ head coach finally announced, will start Thursday night at 8:20 against the visiting Atlanta Falcons. And Carson Wentz, whose last season ended early with a severe knee injury, will have more time to recover.
Pederson did not elaborate, nor did the Eagles did make Foles or Wentz available to the press. But the months-long mystery has been solved: The MVP of the last Super Bowl will be the starter in the Birds’ first meaningful encore.
“After consideration and everything and about the football team and this decision, Nick Foles will be the starter Week 1,” said Pederson, making an impromptu walk-on appearance before the press Monday, before the scheduled conferences with the offensive and defensive coordinators. “My press conference will be tomorrow. I’ll answer questions at that time, but I wanted you to hear it from me. It is about the football team and the best interest of the 53. And Nick Foles will be my starter Week 1.”
With that, he rolled out of the room, leaving offensive coordinator Mike Groh to provide some public context.
“We obviously love the fact that Nick Foles is here, and he’s been our starting quarterback since Carson went down with the injury,” Groh said. “We’ve had a lot of success with Nick. We’ve got a lot of confidence and faith in Nick and the way that he’s going to play and the way that guys are going to play with him.”
In recent weeks, Pederson had grown impatient with questioning about his Week 1 starter. By Sunday, his attitude bent toward confrontational. A day earlier, a report on an NFLenabled website revealed that Foles would be the choice. Pederson, though, had hoped to keep the Falcons and their coaches tied up in a guessing game, and clearly was agitated by the report.
“First of all, I appreciate you all putting words in my mouth this week,” he said. “Therefore, I’m not going to discuss it.” With that followed some questions, some further refusals of clarity from Pederson, and some growing tension. By the time the issue reached the locker room, the players had been warned not to share the quarterback decision. “We may,” Lane Johnson explained, “get a spanking.”
Pederson’s day-after reversal would give the players some relief from the issue, with the “best interest of the 53” clause providing the clue.
Thus ends a topic that had dominated conversation among Eagles fans since the victory over New England in the Super Bowl. Though Wentz had appeared to be recovering quickly from his ACL surgery and was often filmed during training camp running well and throwing with accuracy, he had not been cleared by doctors to play full-contact, NFL football by doctors, Pederson said, as of Sunday. After playing Atlanta Thursday, the Birds will have 10 days off before visiting Tampa Bay Sept. 16, allowing Wentz more recovery time.
Foles and Wentz, it had been reported, were each receiving first-team reps during training camp. Though the Eagles typically reserve all of those for their starting quarterback, Groh said Wentz will continue to have some of those opportunities.
“We have to make sure we’re getting reps for Carson,” Groh said, “so when the time comes that he’s cleared, he’s gotten the work that he needs so that he can be ready to go.”
Even without having had full-time conditioning with the first unit, Foles indicated recently that he’d be ready for any assignment.
“I am able to throw with guys on the side, getting on the same page, talking to them,” Foles said. “Talking is important because there are certain ways you want the routes run and what you’re looking for. But it’s not hard to do. It’s not really hard. So that’s what we’re doing right now.”
That much, he showed last season. After Wentz sustained his season-ending injury last Dec. 10 in Los Angeles, Foles proved to be a ready, capable alternative, guiding the Birds into the Super Bowl. There, he threw for 373 yards and three touchdowns against New England, while also catching a touchdown pass.
“This is the Eagles system, and I think that both guys have very similar skill sets,” Groh said. “They both can perform the plays that we want to get called. We’ve got to get guys in the right spots to do what they do best. But I don’t think it impacts it much at all.”
Both Foles and Pederson are expected to be available for questions Tuesday. Until then, the coaching staff has familiar advice for their Opening Night quarterback.
“Just be Nick,” Groh said. “He did a great job of distributing the football throughout the course of the playoffs and getting rid of the football and not holding the ball and putting the ball in our playmakers’ hands and letting those guys do what they do best.
“He doesn’t have to do anything extraordinary. He just has to continue to play like he did before and be the same guy.”