Is Nick Foles the Best Option at QB for the Surging Kansas City Chiefs?

On Sunday, the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Indianapolis Colts by a score of 30-14, but the narrative around their quarterback situation may end up having more of an impact on their team's season than their 5-2 start.

Against the Colts, starting quarterback Alex Smith, who has been the team's primary starter since 2013, had to leave the game twice with concussion-like symptoms. According to BJ Kissel of of the Chiefs' official website, he had no issue passing the first concussion test but was unable to pass through on his second attempt, which kept him out of the game.

On top of entering the league's concussion protocol this week, Smith also suffered a lacerated ear, according to ESPN.com's Adam Schefter. With its top passer out, it was safe to assume that the Kansas City offense was going to stall, considering the depth of the quarterback position in the league, but its backup, Nick Foles, surprised many with his performance, which featured an average of over 10 yards per attempt.

Early on in training camp, the quarterback unit in Kansas City consisted of Smith, Tyler Bray, a fourth-year project, Aaron Murray, a third-year former fifth-round pick, and Kevin Hogan, a fifth-round rookie. It wasn't until August that Foles, who was cut by the Los Angeles Rams on this year's season of Hard Knocks, was even on the Chiefs roster.

Since then, he's beaten out Bray, who has never thrown a regular-season NFL pass, for the No. 2 spot on the depth chart, and the team let the pairing of Murray and Hogan go, as Andy Reid and Co. must have trusted Foles to take full control of the offense if Smith went down. In his first opportunity at the helm, he passed his exam.

To put his game into perspective, in four years with the Chiefs, Smith has only thrown for an average of 10 yards per attempt three times. And he has only thrown for a passer rating of 135.2, the mark Foles hit against the Colts, three times.

Basically, if you take Smith's best game in any season he's played with Kansas City, it looks a lot like what Foles just did on Sunday. In fact, the last time Smith ever had a better passer rating than Foles' Week 8 effort was in September 2014.

Vertical passing struggles under Smith are nothing new, as Football Outsiders' Scott Kacsmar noted in his mid-October analysis of his ALEX stat, which calculates how many air yards away a target is relative to the first-down marker.

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For as consistent as Roethlisberger and Rodgers are with a high ALEX, the duo of Alex Smith and Blaine Gabbert tend to be the same at the other end. Last year, Smith brought up the rear with the lowest ALEX season on record at minus-3.4. While he is struggling overall as a quarterback this season, Smith is actually just average in ALEX, which has not been the case since 2007. From 2009 to 2015, Smith ranked 30th or lower with a negative ALEX in each season.

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Even if you watch the broadcast copy of Kansas City's offense last week, the difference between the two as vertical passers is obvious. Smith only tested Indianapolis' defense deep on the team's first drive.

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Here is the placement on Alex Smith's two deep throws during KC's first drive today. pic.twitter.com/a3PqjdRswC

— Bad Hombre (@JuMosq) October 31, 2016"

He threw one pass that went out of bounds. He threw one pass that was tipped by a Colts defender. It was a typical "Alex Smith game," which featured him targeting a receiver three yards past the line of scrimmage on a 3rd-and-15, a pass that was tipped at the line of scrimmage.

Some have demanded that Smith needs to throw deep more and that he's passing up downfield targets due to confidence issues with his long ball, but there's a chance that his confidence issues stem from this factor: He isn't good at throwing the long ball.

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This was the Nick Foles touchdown out of that empty quads formation. pic.twitter.com/g39B31hn6r

— Bad Hombre (@JuMosq) October 31, 2016"

On the other hand, Foles was taking deep shots out of exotic empty formations, where he would have to make protection calls at the line of scrimmage or at least know which blitzing defenders he was accountable for. 

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More Nick Foles deep on-target passes pic.twitter.com/lVSYpgKyp3

— Bad Hombre (@JuMosq) October 31, 2016"

Foles was also able to accurately hit a streaking man downfield, a layup and a post-corner route, which requires touch and timing, while putting balls in spots where only his targets could make plays. If nothing else, he's still willing to take shots that Smith likely would have passed up based on his four-year history with the Chiefs.

At some point, the question of which quarterback can take this Chiefs team deeper into the playoffs needs to be brought up. Smith's only postseason victory with Kansas City came last year against the 9-7 Houston Texans, who started Brian Hoyer, a passer who posted four interceptions, completed just 15 passes out of 34 attempts, averaged just four yards per attempt and finished the game with a 15.9 passer rating.

Smith has never been a building block for the Chiefs winning a postseason game, but he has been a factor in them missing the playoffs and losing in the playoffs. He does have positives to his game, but it's hard to make the case that they'd outweigh what Foles can do as a vertical threat for the offense.

For years, Smith has been the poster child for the league's "game manager" stereotype. He's an efficient and semi-mobile passer who can keep an offense going if his defense can keep him out of a shootout and his running game can make for manageable third downs.

Here's the issue for Smith: Foles arguably had the most efficient season in recent memory when he posted 27 passing touchdowns to just two interceptions in his second season with the Philadelphia Eagles. Smith's only other positive trait relative to the average NFL starter is his mobility, and Foles was running the exact same option plays as Smith this past Sunday.

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When Alex Smith went down, Nick Foles ran the exact same play (flipped) the next rep. Inside zone with screen option pic.twitter.com/f1M2SPCqjm

— Bad Hombre (@JuMosq) October 31, 2016"

The offense doesn't have to change at all under Foles. It would just threaten more of the field.

There may be questions around Foles' ability to totally take control of the playbook, but he's already functioning in empty sets and knows when he can check out of a run play to throw a quick pass opposite of the play design, an executive decision that doesn't come from the sideline.

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Nick Foles recognizes the blitz pre-snap. Sees LBs creeping. Throws it to WR in off man while OL run blocks. pic.twitter.com/YYTWXsmB3a

— Bad Hombre (@JuMosq) October 31, 2016"

In Philadelphia, he spent a year with Reid and offensive coordinator Matt Nagy, who was an offensive quality control coach with the Eagles, in his rookie season coming off his third-round draft selection.

In Week 2, Sam Bradford, who was traded for the week of final cuts, started for the Minnesota Vikings in prime time against the Green Bay Packers, who may run the most complicated zone blitz-heavy defense in the league. If Bradford was ready to play in a matter of weeks, Foles should be ready to grasp an offense heading into Week 9 with a familiar staff.

There's no indication otherwise judging by his 22-pass sample.

From this perspective, you can see why starting Foles, who can run a more vertical offense while running the same playbook, would be beneficial for the Chiefs, but a one-game sample does bring up the concerns of an outlier performance, even if Kansas City just scored more points in regulation than it previously had in any game this season.

Quarterbacks just don't fall from the sky, and Foles has exchanged hands twice in two offseasons. When you look at who he's been coached under since Reid's Philadelphia staff got its first shot at him, though, you can make the case that they are among the worst talent evaluators and developers of the quarterback position in the sport.

In Philadelphia, his head coach was Chip Kelly, who is currently juggling the trio of Colin Kaepernick, Christian Ponder and Blaine Gabbert in San Francisco. In St. Louis, his head coach was Jeff Fisher, who can't even get his first overall pick on the field despite Case Keenum throwing eight passing touchdowns and 10 interceptions this season.

One of his offensive coordinators with the Eagles, Bill Lazor, failed in Miami with a first-round quarterback in Ryan Tannehill, while another, Bill Musgrave, inherited Derek Carr in Oakland. At no point have any of those coaches, in a pass-heavy league, developed a quarterback with staying power since influencing Foles' career.

It's within reason to think that Foles, a top-100 selection, slipped through the cracks of the less-than-stable foundations of those coaching staffs.

If Kansas City does move away from Smith, it can save $30.3 million in cap space over the 2017 and 2018 seasons by releasing or trading the quarterback next offseason while taking an immediate savings of $9.7 million in 2017.

Foles was given an extension worth $12.25 million per year with the Rams but, in just a year, was stripped of a roster spot, leading to his one-year $1.75 million contract with the Chiefs. One year of Fisher's influence cost him an average salary difference worth eight figures.

We saw this story play out in San Francisco a few years ago when Kaepernick took the 49ers to the Super Bowl after a Smith injury and a hot hand resulted in him taking over full-time. If Foles can repeat his Indianapolis performance with Smith's status up in the air, we might see history repeating itself in Kansas City.