Doug Worries Me More Than Foles

(In a Dennis Green voice) Nick Foles is who he is and who we thought he was. He’s not a starting quarterback. He’s a decent, serviceable backup quarterback. In fact, Foles (15) was ranked head of Case Keenum (17) in May on Sports Illustrated’s Backup quarterback rankings. Make no mistake, he’s no Jimmy Garoppolo. Somehow, Chase Daniel was ranked head of both Keenum and Foles.

Foles isn’t going to extend a play and make a miraculous game-winning throw. He’s not Carson Wentz. He’s not even close. The Eagles just need Foles not to lose the game with turnovers as long as the defense and running game show up. Oh, and they need brutal weather, which is often a quarterback and passing game neutralizer.

What worries me is Doug Pederson. I’m a Doug believer, but his comments at this week’s press conference are cause for worry. The comments in particular that scare me is that Doug is going back to look at old tape of Nick Foles to see what worked and didn’t work.

NBC Sports reported:

Pederson has gone back to watch tape of Foles from that wild 2013 season, including the 26-24 playoff loss to New Orleans. He actually watched that game on Tuesday morning before his press conference.

“I saw a guy that stood in there, took some shots in that game, delivered some great throws in that game and led the team back to the go-ahead touchdown late in the game,” Pederson said. “That’s the type of quarterback that we have.”

He also went back and watched Foles from 2012 when Andy Reid was still coach. He even watched tape from when Foles was in St. Louis in 2015.

ABC reported:

“The quick-throw was there, a little play-action pass, the shotgun stuff,” said Pederson of Foles’ previous work. “Those are all things that are in our system, and we might just have to dust a few more off and get that ready to go. And that’s kind of what this week is for, to get some of those ideas and thoughts on paper and execute them this week in practice.”

Now, I may be crazy, but I think if you asked Bill Belichick right now what Nick Foles strengths are he could tell you off the cuff because he’s a maniac. We can’t expect Doug to be Belichick, but I think it’s fair to expect Doug to know Nick’s strengths without going back to past game film because he’s been working with the guy for the past 8 months or so. If he doesn’t know, his staff should know, especially Offensive Coordinator Frank Reich and Quarterback Coach guru John DeFilippo.

Time is limited. The fact that time is being spent scouting your own quarterback instead of finding weaknesses in all of the possible opposing defenses is cause for concern.