Foles vs. Wentz - what will the Eagles do??

[Super4]

The hope here is that Wentz's injury is so problematic that his productivity as an NFL QB is all but erased.  I hope he can have a solid quality of life outside of the game, but that he's no longer any good as an NFL QB.

So, I guess keep Nick Foles?  Also, the Football version of The Monstars from Space Jam come down and steal Doug Pederson's coaching powers and give them to Jason Garret.

[Art_Vandalay]

14 hours ago, EliteTexan80 said:

Nothing. Nothing at all. 

Wentz is still the starter, Foles is still the backup. You don't trade Foles, he's exhibit A of why you need an above average backup to succeed in the NFL. 

The problem I have with this statement is, he didn't play like a backup in the championship games. This isn't a situation where he came in, managed the game, and let the defense and running game win it. He annihilated Mike Zimmer and Bill Belichick defenses. Not to mention he outplayed Tom Brady in the SB. It's not an easy of a decision as everyone thinks. A couple of what if's here...

1) What if Nick starts the first half of the season while Carson's still recovering and plays lights out. How on Earth do you go back to Wentz? I know he's been deemed your franchise guy but if playing like an all-pro, outplaying Brady in the SB, bringing Philly its first title, and continuing that level of play doesn't win you the job, what does?

2) Let's say a team like the Browns offer the house for Carson. Picks #1, #4, 2nd rounder, 3rd rounder, etc... I don't think that's out of the realm of possibility. He would warrant more compensation than the RGIII trade. Is saying no to an offer like that easy?

Those are some big what if's but definitely possible. Between now and the midway point of the 2018 season is going to be interesting.

[BLick12]

17 minutes ago, Art_Vandalay said:

The problem I have with this statement is, he didn't play like a backup in the championship games. This isn't a situation where he came in, managed the game, and let the defense and running game win it. He annihilated Mike Zimmer and Bill Belichick defenses. Not to mention he outplayed Tom Brady in the SB. It's not an easy of a decision as everyone thinks. A couple of what if's here...

1) What if Nick starts the first half of the season while Carson's still recovering and plays lights out. How on Earth do you go back to Wentz? I know he's been deemed your franchise guy but if playing like an all-pro, outplaying Brady in the SB, bringing Philly its first title, and continuing that level of play doesn't win you the job, what does?

2) Let's say a team like the Browns offer the house for Carson. Picks #1, #4, 2nd rounder, 3rd rounder, etc... I don't think that's out of the realm of possibility. He would warrant more compensation than the RGIII trade. Is saying no to an offer like that easy?

Those are some big what if's but definitely possible. Between now and the midway point of the 2018 season is going to be interesting.

You have to be kidding... He deserves a ton of credit for the games he played against both the Vikings and Pats, but saying he outplayed Brady is wildly disingenuous given that the Eagles defense is also vastly superior to the Pats. He annihilated a garbage Pats defense.   His career is that of a backup QB. He's very inconsistent and at many points, flat out atrocious.  Wentz played an enormous role in earning us a 1st seed that made Foles' run even remotely possible. Ignoring that and exclusively praising Foles for playing literally 2 very good games is preposterous.  

1) Nothing wins Nick Foles a starting job next season except Carson not recovering or blowing out his knee again.

2) Yes, it is easy to turn down that offer. He's a franchise QB, that is 25 years old and was a front runner for MVP before he got injured. 

[Danger]

16 hours ago, EliteTexan80 said:

I guess my follow up would be - what is the Eagles' cap figure look like? Any priority FAs to be mindful of on that roster? Any dead weight to remove before taking action with Foles? I know there's a lot of talk of cutting Jason Peters, so that's a significant cao savings, I'd surmise.

First name that come up and are almost certainly gone.

TE Brent Celek (4 Million)
WR Torrey Smith (5 Million)
LG Chance Warmack (1.2 Million)

Then there are some ?s
DE Vinny Curry (5 Million) -- Could thin the depth a bit and go with Rookie 1st round pick Derek Barnett as the more full time guy and bring another guy to be the backup.
LT Jason Peters (4.3 Million) -- Halapoulivaati Vaitai (Yes I can spell it) continued to get better and better, given Peters injury/age who knows how well he'll be able to recover and given our cap situation it might be best to let him walk off into the sunset and offer him a coaching job on our team.
S/STAce Chris Maragos (1.5 Million) -- also coming off a season ending injury, I don't expect him to be gone, but I think it's a high price to pay for someone to be basically just a ST kick coverage guy.
P Donnie Jones (1.6 Million) -- Dude is ancient, got a ring, and pretty expensive for a punter.
WR Shelton Gibson (426k) -- Garbage rookie who should have never made the team
RB Donnell Pumphrey (192k) -- See Gibson
RB Wendell Smallwood  (569k) -- Not terrible, but not spectacular, we won't bring back Blount, but Sproles might be able to come back from injury?, if not we'll need to find a 3rd running back, but I think we'll end up keeping Smallwood to be our 3rd RB behind Ajayi and Clement unless a good RB falls to us in the draft in the later rounds.

[Danger]

14 hours ago, Super4 said:

The hope here is that Wentz's injury is so problematic that his productivity as an NFL QB is all but erased.  I hope he can have a solid quality of life outside of the game, but that he's no longer any good as an NFL QB.

That's super unclassy.

[Art_Vandalay]

1 hour ago, BLick12 said:

You have to be kidding... He deserves a ton of credit for the games he played against both the Vikings and Pats, but saying he outplayed Brady is wildly disingenuous given that the Eagles defense is also vastly superior to the Pats. He annihilated a garbage Pats defense.   His career is that of a backup QB. He's very inconsistent and at many points, flat out atrocious.  Wentz played an enormous role in earning us a 1st seed that made Foles' run even remotely possible. Ignoring that and exclusively praising Foles for playing literally 2 very good games is preposterous.  

1) Nothing wins Nick Foles a starting job next season except Carson not recovering or blowing out his knee again.

2) Yes, it is easy to turn down that offer. He's a franchise QB, that is 25 years old and was a front runner for MVP before he got injured. 

From week 4 on, the Pats gave up 14 points per game. I don't know if that's the best in the league but it's probably pretty damn close. They're far from a "garbage" defense. And as great as Brady played, he missed some throws and was responsible for a critical, game-clinching turnover. Foles didn't make one bad decision or one bad throw. The incompletions were either drops or throwaways. And the pick was obviously Alshon's fault.

Don't you think it's possible that he figured it out? Yeah, he was inconsistent up to this point but you knew there was something there.

27:2 TD:INT ratio one season
7 TDs in one game
Pro Bowl MVP (for whatever that's worth)
SB MVP
Playoff comp% - 72%
Playoff TD:INT 8:1

These aren't accomplishments from a "good backup." He looks like a guy that found his perfect coach and system and now has all the confidence in the world. And how do we know Carson's going to stop taking hits and trying to truck safeties? He clearly has HOF potential but is more competitive than smart at times. 

I can't comprehend why so many people are shrugging this off like it's some common thing that happens every year. This never happens. Backups don't come in and play flawless on the biggest stages. Philly gets their first SB title primarily due to an out-of-this-world performance from Nick and our fans are like, "Good job, Nick. Can't wait for Carson to get back now so we can start putting up 60 points in Super Bowl's." Is no one realizing wtf just happened?

[Blahstoise]

We realise what happened, but Carson adjusts plays at the line, has a near enough photographic memory and can make plays with his legs. He could likely run a number of offences well.

Nick on the other hand thrives in a system, but Doug was forced to adjust his entire playbook to cater to Nick Foles needs.

He doesn't make adjustments as much at the line, he runs the offence given to him, that's the difference between the two of them. And that's why Wentz is the future, and Foles will likely be traded.

[Super4]

2 hours ago, Danger said:

That's super unclassy.

I feel like "keep it classy" or "that's unclassy" is the new flavor of the month term of the hyper-sensitive members on this forum.

That being said, maybe I should have specified.  I don't want him being remotely productive, as an opposing NFC East QB.  And I did say I hope he has great quality of life and the injury only holds him back as an NFL athlete.  I'm not happy he's hurt, but I'm certainly not going to deny that him being hurt helps my team and I'm not upset about it.

[BLick12]

2 hours ago, Art_Vandalay said:

From week 4 on, the Pats gave up 14 points per game. I don't know if that's the best in the league but it's probably pretty damn close. They're far from a "garbage" defense. And as great as Brady played, he missed some throws and was responsible for a critical, game-clinching turnover. Foles didn't make one bad decision or one bad throw. The incompletions were either drops or throwaways. And the pick was obviously Alshon's fault.

Don't you think it's possible that he figured it out? Yeah, he was inconsistent up to this point but you knew there was something there.

27:2 TD:INT ratio one season
7 TDs in one game
Pro Bowl MVP (for whatever that's worth)
SB MVP
Playoff comp% - 72%
Playoff TD:INT 8:1

These aren't accomplishments from a "good backup." He looks like a guy that found his perfect coach and system and now has all the confidence in the world. And how do we know Carson's going to stop taking hits and trying to truck safeties? He clearly has HOF potential but is more competitive than smart at times. 

I can't comprehend why so many people are shrugging this off like it's some common thing that happens every year. This never happens. Backups don't come in and play flawless on the biggest stages. Philly gets their first SB title primarily due to an out-of-this-world performance from Nick and our fans are like, "Good job, Nick. Can't wait for Carson to get back now so we can start putting up 60 points in Super Bowl's." Is no one realizing wtf just happened?

PPG is an extremely narrow way to gauge a defense.  It was talked about a lot in the GDT but the Pats were like 30th in DVOA and a big debate was whether that was a more accurate portrayal of their defense or PPG.  As we saw, the DVOA ranking was pretty spot on.  That's not a good defense, that's a defense that has benefited massively from playing alongside an elite offense that never turns the ball over and always chews up yards and clock as well as an elite special teams unit that hardly makes mistakes.  

Foles played a great game, I'm not taking away anything from his performance, and Brady definitely left a few plays on the table, but it is still grossly disingenuous to say he outperformed him given the circumstances.  

No, I don't think he has figured it out. How many QBs have had such inconsistency throughout their career and then magically turned into superstars?  There's plenty of instances of guys having one or two good seasons and then not amounting to much.  He's a great backup that can be an average starter and play at a high level on occasion.  How many instances are there where backups have gotten to come in and play in the playoffs? Let alone with a number 1 seed on a stacked team?  Backups might not have runs like this to show for, but mediocre QBs like Joe Flacco and to a lesser extent Eli Manning do.  You're literally building this guy up because of 3 playoff wins, and a season 5 years ago in an offense team's had never seen before.  I bolded a sentence in your post, you could literally say that word for word after the season he had with Chip Kelly. How did year two turn out?

The stars aligned for Foles for this run.  I said it in a thread on the Eagles forum as soon as Carson went down that this is the best situation imaginable for Foles... and prior to this run, I detested Foles as a QB. But an elite o-line, good weapons, and a coach that actually game plans around his talent is a good recipe for anyone.   However,  he still has significant flaws in his game and we saw a sample of it once he immediately became the starter.  His mechanics, accuracy and decision making are still extremely poor when he is pressured. He still has issues trusting his reads and double clutches instead of anticipating throws.  Thankfully, Pederson quickly identified that and added elements of Chip Kelly's scheme to simplify some things and make him more comfortable. 

I don't think it is something that is common that happens every year and I couldn't be more thrilled that it happened for us.  I'm happy for Foles; he's a good guy and he's proven he has a place on a NFL roster and deserves the title of SB MVP.  But I'm also realistic in that we have a great all-around team and QB play can be drastically impacted by that.  The same holds true for Wentz; he might not be a MVP front runner next year coming back from injury and with some of the changes we'll likely have to make against the cap. But based on what I've seen, it is a no-brainer as to who I want leading this team moving forward. 

[Art_Vandalay]

39 minutes ago, Blahman88 said:

We realise what happened, but Carson adjusts plays at the line, has a near enough photographic memory and can make plays with his legs. He could likely run a number of offences well.

Nick on the other hand thrives in a system, but Doug was forced to adjust his entire playbook to cater to Nick Foles needs.

He doesn't make adjustments as much at the line, he runs the offence given to him, that's the difference between the two of them. And that's why Wentz is the future, and Foles will likely be traded.

Just to clarify, this isn't me saying Foles is better than Wentz. I'm just saying this isn't an easy decision if 1) you're offered an absurd amount for Wentz or 2) Foles plays the first half of the season and plays like he did in the championship games. "Thanks for the unprecedented elite play, Nick. You can take a seat now."

You have to look at durabiilty too. Andrew Luck is a guy most people looked at coming out as a future SB winner and HOFer. We looked at Wentz this year as that type of QB but the difference between the two is that Luck has an abysmal Oline and got destroyed because his guys can't block. Wentz took more hits than anyone in the league with arguably an elite Oline. Look at the history

2015 - wrist fracture
2016 - rib fracture and reported elbow/shoulder issues at the end of the season
2017 - ACL/LCL tear

Ideally, he learns from this and does a better job at avoiding hits. It's something to keep in mind as an organization though. 

[BLick12]

57 minutes ago, Blahman88 said:

We realise what happened, but Carson adjusts plays at the line, has a near enough photographic memory and can make plays with his legs. He could likely run a number of offences well.

Nick on the other hand thrives in a system, but Doug was forced to adjust his entire playbook to cater to Nick Foles needs.

He doesn't make adjustments as much at the line, he runs the offence given to him, that's the difference between the two of them. And that's why Wentz is the future, and Foles will likely be traded.

That's actually a great point as well... but certainly not the only difference. 

[BLick12]

2 minutes ago, Art_Vandalay said:

Just to clarify, this isn't me saying Foles is better than Wentz. I'm just saying this isn't an easy decision if 1) you're offered an absurd amount for Wentz or 2) Foles plays the first half of the season and plays like he did in the championship games. "Thanks for the unprecedented elite play, Nick. You can take a seat now."

You have to look at durabiilty too. Andrew Luck is a guy most people looked at coming out as a future SB winner and HOFer. We looked at Wentz this year as that type of QB but the difference between the two is that Luck has an abysmal Oline and got destroyed because his guys can't block. Wentz took more hits than anyone in the league with arguably an elite Oline. Look at the history

2015 - wrist fracture
2016 - rib fracture and reported elbow/shoulder issues at the end of the season
2017 - ACL/LCL tear

Ideally, he learns from this and does a better job at avoiding hits. It's something to keep in mind as an organization though. 

Wentz doesn't play smart with his body.  I think it is a fair knock on him, and I'm hopeful this is the type of injury that makes him more aware of that. But it is common among young QBs and generally fixable.  It is certainly not a valid reason to trade him in favor of Nick Foles.  

[DirtyDez]

Do the Eagles decline a mid-1st rd pick offer?

[Super4]

If the Browns offered their 1st overall selection for Wentz?

[BLick12]

1 minute ago, Super4 said:

If the Browns offered their 1st overall selection for Wentz?

We laugh in their faces.