Nick Foles Lucks into Another Extended Tryout for Eagles

Outside of their inability to score a point, the biggest news of Sunday’s game was that Michael Vick re-injured his hamstring.

According to Pro Football Talk's Michael David Smith, Chip Kelly has chosen Nick Foles as next week's starting quarterback. Foles, who cleared concussion testing this week, will probably be the Birds’ starter until December. Why December? The Eagles have a Week 12 bye, which has them playing on November 17 and then December 1. That’s likely the earliest date that we’ll see Vick play again.

Now, when Foles played during this last stretch, part of the reason that I didn’t buy so much into his success was the quality of competition. He played the Giants (2-6), Buccaneers (0-7) and Cowboys (4-4) over that stretch. Over the next few weeks, the schedule appears a little bit stronger but is more of the same. The Eagles play at Oakland (3-4), at Green Bay (5-2) and vs. Washington (2-5) before the bye.

The records are certainly better, and the Packers sound like a guaranteed loss, but defensively this is still a Foles-friendly schedule. The Raiders, Packers and Redskins are the 17th-, 12th- and fifth-worst passing defenses respectively in yards per game thus far. They also combine for a total of only 15 picks in 21 games.

While I still like Vick more at the moment as a player, this is the best-case scenario. Like before, everyone gets to see if Foles is the stud of Tampa Bay or the Dallas dud, and Chip doesn’t lose the locker room.

Assuming he does play until December 1, Foles will have played significant time in 13 regular-season games in addition to all of the practice time and preseason work. That should be enough time to decide whether they are willing to commit to No. 9 going forward. It also makes for a few interesting weeks in an otherwise subpar season.

To close, here are Foles' basic stats as they stand now:

Record	Attempts	Completions	Comp %	Total Yards	TDs	INTs
2-6	355	213	60	2,321	12	5

*I’m not including the recent Giants game for Foles’ record.