Leading OFF
Foles soaking up Super Bowl title, living in the moment
MINNEAPOLIS – The quarterback nobody thought would ever be here sat in a staging area after Super Bowl LII, his wife, Tori, next to him, his infant daughter, Lily, in his arms.
Nick Foles held her so he could see her eyes, seemingly shutting out everything else in the chaos of a Philadelphia Eagles postgame celebration bellowing through the halls of U.S. Bank Stadium after a 41-33 victory against the New England Patriots.
It’s fair to say Foles himself could barely have imagined what it would be like, not just to be a Super Bowl champion but the game’s most valuable player at 29, a couple of years removed from nearly giving up pro football and only six weeks into his stint as a starter.
But the path of greatness doesn’t always follow a straight or predictable line. And in a moment that demanded he match Tom Brady throw for throw, Foles undoubtedly played the game of his life.
“You never really know what it’s going to be like when you go into a Super Bowl,” Foles said. “I’ve never been here before. So there are normal nerves, you’ve got butterflies. It’s a big game. It doesn’t get any bigger than this. But I felt good, felt calm. I think the big thing that helped me was knowing I didn’t have to be Superman.”
Under these circumstances, though, Foles was close enough.
Every time the Eagles needed him to make a big throw or lead a drive, he delivered. He fit balls into impossibly tight windows. He avoided mistakes and sacks. He converted 10 of 16 third downs and a huge fourth down with 5:39 to go, eventually leading to his 11-yard touchdown throw to Zach Ertz that put the Eagles ahead 38-33 after they’d fallen behind for the first time all game. He even caught a touchdown pass on a trick play at the end of the first half.
For one night, anyway, Foles was more like a superstar than a journeyman backup, finishing with 373 passing yards, 28 of 43 completions and three touchdowns, becoming the first quarterback in franchise history to call himself a Super Bowl champion.
“I’m so happy for Nick,” Eagles coach Doug Pederson said. “A lot of people counted him out, didn’t think he’d get it done. I believed in him, the staff believed in him, the players believed in him. We needed time. We needed time together to work out some things, and this postseason Nick has shown exactly who he is and what he can do.”
Foles, to be fair, has not exactly been some scrub in the NFL. He made a Pro Bowl in 2013 during his first stint with the Eagles and was considered good enough to earn a two-year, $24.5 million contract from the Rams in 2015.
But it would also be underselling the magnitude of what he accomplished for the Eagles to say this last month has been anything short of stunning. When starter Carson Wentz suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament on Dec. 10 in the middle of what many considered to be an MVP-type season, the Eagles’ hopes of contending for a championship were supposed to be finished.
Foles had signed to be a backup and had only played a handful of snaps in Pederson’s system before suddenly having to start in Week 14 for a team that could have easily used Wentz’s injury as an excuse to move on to next year.
It says a lot about the Eagles locker room that they didn’t give up on this season, even as they were underdogs in Las Vegas in home playoff games against the Atlanta Falcons and Minnesota Vikings. But it says even more about Foles that he played so spectacularly in all three playoff games, completing 72.6% of his passes and throwing one interception, which came on an unlucky carom off Alshon Jeffery early in the Super Bowl.
“The stage was never too big for him all year,” Ertz said. “To get in a shootout with that guy on the other team is probably not ideal for anyone ever.”
But Foles never even came close to crumbling, even as Brady and the force of Patriots history applied more pressure with every drive.
“I wasn’t worried about the scoreboard,” Foles said. “I was just playing ball, and sometimes you start worrying about that so much it starts creeping in your brain. I just kept playing, whatever play Doug called, I was going to go out there and rip it.”
He did a lot of ripping, starting with a 34-yard heave to Alshon Jeffery on the Eagles’ second possession that showed how sharp he was and ending when he ripped a sixth title away from Brady and Bill Belichick.
“I think the big thing is don’t be afraid to fail,” Foles said during his morning-after news conference. “In our society today, with Instagram and Twitter, it’s a highlight. It’s all the good things. When you look at it, you have a bad day, you think your life isn’t as good, you’re failing. Failure is a part of life. It’s a part of building character and growing. Without failure, who would you be? I wouldn’t be up here if I hadn’t fallen thousands of times, made mistakes.”
Remarkably, the cold reality of the NFL offers no guarantees about the future. This moment belonged to Foles, and Philadelphians will never forget.
But this team belongs to Wentz. And as soon as he’s healthy enough to play again, Foles will either be on the bench or on somebody else’s roster.
“You know who is throwing the ball (next season),” Jeffery said. “Carson, of course.”
Foles said he’s not worried about his future right now.
“I’m grateful to be a part of the Philadelphia Eagles,” he said. “I said when I signed with the Eagles: I’m grateful and content in this moment. Well, I’m staying in the moment. ... There will be a time and a place to handle all that. I take a lot of pride in wearing the Philadelphia Eagles jersey and I just enjoy being here. Such a great team.
“I’m excited for Carson Wentz coming back healthy. I work with him every day. Dude is a stud, and I’m just living in the moment.”