Consistency, or Lack Thereof, Keeps Nick Foles Employed

By: Kris Mead

This blog is an anomaly, which is fitting considering the topic is about an anomaly. After watching another one of my bets go south, as the LA Rams lost their second straight game and are looking more like the St. Louis Rams than the Los Angeles Rams, I realized that Nicholas Edward Foles is the best “no stress” quarterback in the NFL.

By “no stress,” it’s not to imply he faces no stress. It is obvious that any quarterback who wins a Super Bowl is performing under stress, but what I mean is the fact that he performs exceptionally well when there aren’t high expectations set for him. In other words, he performs well when he is asked, like most backup quarterbacks, to not necessarily win the game but to just not lose the game. This is evident in the most recent case in the Sunday Night game in which Nicholas Foles was asked to start after the starting quarterback, Carson Wentz, went down last week with a back injury. Foles threw for 277 yards with 24 completions on 31 attempts and one interception, as the Eagles went on to beat the Rams 23-20. Now, maybe this heroic performance was enabled by Foles’ sense of betrayal by the L.A. Rams when they drafted Jared Goff, their current starting quarterback, with the number one pick in the 2016 NFL Draft; thus causing Foles, at the time the Rams starting quarterback, to “see the light” in his time with the Rams. Foles would be released by the Rams and would later sign with the Philadelphia Eagles. A more plausible reason for why Foles plays well when given the start is that he feels very little or no pressure to play well.

Foles’ best season was his second year in the league and his first stint with the Eagles, back in 2013. That year would end with him having a QBR of 71.5, winning eight of his ten starts, having a touchdown/interception ratio of 27/2 (which beat Tom Brady’s record touchdown/interception ratio of 36/4), and set the third highest single season passer rating of 119 (only to be behind Aaron Rodgers’ 2011 record and Peyton Manning’s record set in 2004, respectively) and even became the 2014 Pro Bowl Offensive MVP.

Even Foles’ rookie year was by no means a travesty and, measured against other rookies, looked to be a success. Although he only won one out of his six games, he was able to complete more than 60% of his passes and had touchdown/interception ratio of 6/5. Finally, Foles had a successful 2017 season when he was thrusted into the starting job after starting quarterback, Caron Wentz, tore his ACL. In those three postseason games (including the Super Bowl win) he completed more than 72% of his passes and had a touchdown/interception ratio of 6/1. So why is Foles an ongoing backup?

It’s because Foles has what a lot of young starting baseball pitchers have and that is the “yipps.” Sometimes the “yipps” are like a chronic disease in which the only cure is to hope that the person outgrows it, but other times the “yipps” are incurable and the highly touted player is kicked to the outskirts of obscurity.

The three seasons that I mentioned all have something in common – Foles was never the season starting quarterback. Furthermore, Foles never replaced a starting quarterback due to the starting quarterback’s lack of reputable play, but rather only replaced a quarterback when the starter became injured.  For instance, in 2012 Foles replaced Michael Vick, after Vick was overcoming concussion injuries. In 2013 Foles finished the last ten games after Vick had a season debilitating hamstring injury. Furthemore, in 2013 Foles was given the chance to compete against Vick for the starting position and lost. In 2014, the year after Foles was being written into the record books next to the likes of Manning and Rodgers, he was finally given his shot as the starter for Philadelphia in 2014.

2014 wasn’t a dismal year, but it wasn’t a great year for Foles. That’s not because it was cut short after he broke his collarbone in the eight game of the season against the Houston Texans. It was because of the epic drop off in terms of Foles’ production from 2013 to 2014. In just eight games, Foles had a quarterback rating of 81.9 and a touchdown/interception ratio of 13/10. Those statistics don’t produce Pro Bowl eligibility and they also don’t produce, throughout the organization, a sense of consistency at quarterback. Furthermore, Mr.Buttfumble himself, Mark Sanchez, would take the reins for the remainder of the 2014 season and eclipse all of Foles’ 2014 statistics. The fact that Mr.Buttfumble was able to outperform a one year out Pro Bowl quarterback doesn’t bode well in terms of an organization having faith in its starting quarterback.

Before the 2015 season started, Foles was traded to the then St. Louis Rams in exchange for their quarterback, Sam Bradford. Foles started out hot, but quickly nosedived. His dramatic decline came to its zenith against the Green Bay Packers, when he completed 11 for 30 passes for 141 yards, one touchdown and a career high 4 interceptions. It was no surprise that the newly acquired, for $24.5M, Foles would be benched the following week and Case Keenum, the backup, would receive the starting nod. Foles was, as stated above, granted a release from the Rams in 2016 and signed with the Kansas City Chiefs. With the Chiefs Foles was again relegated to backup.  When the Chiefs’ starter, Alex Smith, inevitably got hurt, Foles played as Foles always does when he is called up to play when the starter goes down – extremely well. In two games played as a Chief, Foles completed 65% of his passes for 410 yards, and a touchdown/interception ratio of 3/0. Finally, the Chiefs would not pick up Foles’ 2017 second year option and, as discussed prior, he would sign again with the Eagles.

Foles might be the best “sixth man” in the NFL. Where for some ironic reason when he is named the outright starter, 2014 with the Eagles or 2015 with the Rams, or is condemned to competing for the starting job, as he was in 2013, he fails. However, when the starter is incapable of surpassing him because, well, the starter got hurt while “starting,” Foles plays above average. It’s almost as though the secret to defeating the Eagles is to make sure that their starting season quarterback doesn’t get injured that year. For what that does is cause Foles to be relaxed, to know he can’t get surpassed because he is the last resort and with that sense of “expectation,” or lack thereof, Foles performs with the likes of Peyton Manning and Aaron Rodgers. Foles is like Invisible Boy, from the 1999 film, Mystery Men, in which his super power is to turn invisible … when no one is around. Foles’ lack of consistency is both the reason why he is still in the NFL, and the reason why he was nearly ousted from the NFL. A quote from the British philosopher Jeremy Bentham might best sum up the predicament that is Nick Foles, “in principle and in practice . . . the rarest of all human qualities is consistency.”