Foles directs Eagles to NFC crown
Unheralded QB leads 38-7 rout of Vikings
PHILADELPHIA – How’s that for a metamorphosis.
In the past month, we’ve witnessed Nick Foles progress from shaky placeholder to serviceable game manager to bona fide playoff force and Super Bowl-contending quarterback.
First, he helped keep the Eagles afloat when they lost Carson Wentz to a torn anterior cruciate ligament. Then he did enough to get by in their playoff opener while his defensive teammates dismantled the Atlanta Falcons.
And then on Sunday, with his Eagles a game away from the Super Bowl,
Foles put his team on his back in a 38-7 victory over the Minnesota Vikings in the NFC Championship Game by completing 26 of 33 passes for 352 yards with three touchdowns with no interceptions. He was pulled with minutes left to a rousing reception from his teammates and the fans.
“In this moment, it’s unbelievable ... unbelievable,” Foles said. “Everyone was against us. We just came out and stuck together.”
Foles’s performance served as further proof that with serviceable talent and hard-hat work ethic, a strong supporting cast and, most importantly, intuitive coaching and game-planning, anything is possible.
The 2017 season has served as an exhibit in Winning with B-level QBs 101. Minnesota, Jacksonville and Buffalo all exceeded expectations, reaching the playoffs with less-than-elite passers.
But Foles might’ve given us the most impressive display thus far.
In his three regular-season starts — while thrust into that role because of Wentz’s knee injury — Foles underwhelmed. The Eagles won two of those games. But the offensive firepower had waned, third-down percentage dipped, and the Eagles didn’t look like a team with a legitimate chance of reaching the Super Bowl. When broached with questions over concerns about Foles’ capabilities, Eagles players and coaches were dismissive.
Foles hadn’t played a snap in the preseason thanks to an elbow injury, they reminded. Until Wentz’s exit after tearing his anterior cruciate ligament against the Rams in Week 14, Foles had attempted four passes all season long.
So essentially the final three games of the regular season served as Foles’ preseason, and his coaches basically treated it as such, scaling back the playbook to avoid overloading the quarterback in his suddenly expanded role.
Because the Eagles earned the top seed in the NFC, they received an extra week to prepare Foles for their playoff opener — last weekend’s 15-10 win over Atlanta, a game in which Foles turned in a solid performance, completing 23 of 30 passes for 246 yards with no touchdowns but, more important, no interceptions.
Then on Sunday, the Eagles took the training wheels off their quarterback and at the same time did a masterful job of positioning him for success.
Early on, Doug Pederson and offensive coordinator Frank Reich did a great job of easing pressure on Foles by causing hesitation in the defense with the use of a heavy dose of read-pass option plays.
When a defender sees the quarterback take the shotgun snap and stick the ball in the belly of his running back, his instincts tell him to play the run rather than rush the passer. But on those times where Foles opted to pull the ball back and throw, that splitsecond hesitations created by the fakes were all he needed to find open receivers.
Again and again the Eagles went with these plays, operating at a crisp pace, and in so doing helped Foles gain confidence and settle into a rhythm.
On that second possession, Foles completed five of his six passes for 42 yards while the Eagles sprinkled in six runs for 33 yards, the last an 11-yard LeGarrette Blount TD run.
From there, Foles’ comfort and confidence only increased. He hung in the pocket, ignoring the rush and kept his eyes downfield to find receivers for key gains. He froze defenders with crisp pump-fakes and used his legs to extend plays and buy his receivers time and then dropped dimes to move chains and hang more points on the board.
Foles basically dished out the level of play the Eagles would have anticipated from Wentz.
And that is a testament both to Foles for his perseverance — through failed stints in St. Louis and Kansas City and while knocking off the rust while stepping in for Wentz — and to the work of Philadelphia’s coaching staff.