QB Sudfeld returns, waiting for his chance
Quarterback Nate Sudfeld returns to Eagles, waiting for his chance
Playing quarterback is about being able to think on your feet. Nate Sudfeld checked that box and then some before he played his first regular-season snap for the Eagles.
After joining the Eagles for the 2017 season, Sudfeld and his teammates were surrounded by fans as they warmed up for game.
Sudfeld was asked for an autograph not of himself, but Nick Foles, whom he resembled physically with his 6-6 frame and dirty blonde hair. When it was clear his audience wasn’t going to take “I’m Sudfeld” for an answer, he signed for his twin. If you hounded Foles for an autograph and he reluctantly signed, it may have been Sudfeld.
“I didn’t want them to think he was a bad guy and just ignoring them,” Sudfeld said. “I felt kind of bad about it.”
Sudfeld feels good about signing a oneyear contract worth $1.4 million to compete for the backup job again with the Eagles.
It looked like Sudfeld would be the backup until he fractured his left wrist in the preseason opener last August.
Fearful that Carson Wentz hadn’t completed the previous two seasons, the Eagles reached out to Josh McCown, who had just turned 40. They literally coaxed McCown out of retirement, the veteran working on a second career as a high school football assistant.
When McCown had to play, Wentz exiting with a concussion in the wild card round of the playoffs against Seattle, his hamstring snapped. And Sudfeld was left to wonder, what if?
Gritty as McCown was, not missing a snap in incredible pain, the Eagles would have been better equipped to take on that mobile Seahawks defense with Sudfeld, who was one of the inactives.
Here Sudfeld is again, battling for the backup job.
The competition now is Kyle Lauletta, the Downingtown East product and fourth-round pick of the New York Giants in 2018.
“I can do well in practice and there are things I obviously want to improve on,” Sudfeld said on a conference call. “But the crazy thing about quarterback especially, is that you never really know about a guy until they’re thrown in there and so the only way to get experience is to get experience. The chapter of that book is not closed for me. I feel like there are still things I want to accomplish here.”
Sudfeld, who turns 27 in October, was a sixth-round pick of Washington in 2016. He didn’t play a snap that year or in his first hitch with the Eagles.
Sudfeld’s first game action came in relief of Foles, after Wentz had blown out a knee in December of the 2017 Super Bowl championship season. Sudfeld completed 19 of 23 attempts for 134 yards and a 90.9 rating in a 6-0 loss to Dak Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys in an otherwise meaningless regular-season game.
Sudfeld helped kill the clock subbing for Foles, who would become the Super Bowl LII MVP, in the NFC title game blowout of the Minnesota Vikings.
Eagles general manager Howie Roseman is glad to have Sudfeld signed, although he also said there likely would be more competition for the backup position. Sources say McCown is a possibility to return in 2020.
“Nate is a guy that has developed in our program and has a great awareness of what we’re trying to do offensively,” Roseman said. “As we look at this offseason and the challenges that we may face this offseason, having a reliable player back there who knows what we’re doing, who knows our scheme, who knows our offensive players is important to us. But we also think he’s got a talent level. That’s a 26-year-old guy that we think can do a lot of things, has a lot of traits that we’re looking for in a quarterback and so we’re excited to bring him back.”
The bottom line for the Eagles is that Wentz hasn’t completed any of the past three seasons after playing in every game as a rookie. Three years ago, Wentz was finished after a torn ACL. In 2018 it was a hairline fracture in his back. Last year it was a Jadeveon Clowney hit on a bang-bang play that Eagles apologists called dirty. Clowney wasn’t fined, much less suspended, further infuriating the chorus.
Sudfeld, remember, can think on his feet. The last three years tell him if you play on the same team as Wentz, at some point you’re going to get a shot.
“I think they all know I’m very confident in myself,” Sudfeld said. “The way I act, the way I talk, the way I practice but you know, I get it. It’s crazy how fast everything changes you know as a player. You sit on the bench a couple of years. You’re thrown in a game and have a good game and forever it’s, ‘OK, he can play.’ So I am trying to stay ready.”