Philadelphia Eagles: The Foles vs Wentz debate ended a long time ago

Stop bringing up Nick Foles when talking about the Philadelphia Eagles.

Before we dive into this ever-touchy discussion, let me start by throwing this disclaimer out there: I absolutely love Nick Foles. I cried like a baby when he hoisted the Lombardi Trophy in 2018, I took a picture with his statue at the Linc, and his jersey (which I got in 2013!) still hangs in my bedroom to this day. He is, by any stretch of the imagination, a Philadelphia Eagles legend.

With that said, it was never much of a debate when it came to choosing between him and Carson Wentz.

And look, props to Foles for his performance on Thursday Night Football just now. He led a fairly below average Bears team to a win over Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. It wasn’t pretty (243 yards, 2 turnovers, just the 1 TD), but he got the job done. He made big time throws when he had to, and ultimately left the field with the lead in the fourth quarter.

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However, this one random Week 5 win does not negate the fact that Philly ultimately made the right call on who their franchise quarterback would be.

If we flash back to that fateful day in 2019 when the Philadelphia Eagles chose Wentz over Foles, it really wan’t much of a difficult decision. In fact, it was probably one of the easiest conclusions the organization has ever come to.

Even with Foles’ heroics in both the 2017 and the 2018 playoffs, the decision to commit to either a career backup, or a former #2 overall pick/recent MVP candidate was never one that really needed too much debate around it. Sure, Foles had his moments while wearing midnight green, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to acknowledge that Wentz was without question the superior talent.

Wentz was a torn ACL away from winning the MVP in 2017, and likely would have gone on to win the Super Bowl that year as well. Even if you throw out the 2017 season as a “pre-ACL year”, he still shut up a ton of doubters with his performance down the stretch last season, leading a practice squad filled Eagles team to four straight wins and a division title.

Still yet to ever operate with a true “WR1” during his NFL career, Wentz is 33-26-1 as a starter, and has broken franchise record after franchise record. If he continues on his current track, he’ll likely go down as the greatest statistical QB in Eagles history.

Foles on the other hand, has not had such success since leaving Philly.

He failed to beat out Gardner Minshew for the starting job in Jacksonville (once he returned from injury), and then lost his first game as a starter in Chicago. His win against the Buccaneers tonight was actually his first win as a starter since the infamous “double doink” game back in the 2018 Wild Card round.

Sports radio will be ripe with “Foles > Wentz” takes for the next week because of the Bears win over the Bucs tonight, but it’s in all reality not backed with any sort of statistical logic. Foles’ highest passing yards total in a single season is 2,891, Wentz’ is 4,039. Foles’ career record for passing TDs in a season is 27, Wentz’ is 33. Foles’s best career QBR is 71.5, Wentz’ is 77.2…

I think you get the point.

Some people have been quick to cite “culture” and “feel” when it comes to Foles potentially being a better fit on the Eagles compared to Wentz, but even that’s hard to justify. The team absolutely loved Wentz during the 2017 regular season, and then rallied around him during last year’s closing stretch. It’s not his fault that Alshon Jeffery can’t stop hitting up Josina Anderson’s phone.

By every stretch of the imagination, Wentz has been a better quarterback than Foles, both prior to the Super Bowl win and following the Super Bowl win. Not a single metric in the history of sports would cite that Howie Roseman made the “wrong” decision in picking Carson over Nick.

I still think Foles is a solid quarterback, one that deserves to keep his starting job out in Chicago. However, the debate regarding whether the Eagles should have kept him over #11 died a very long time ago, and we’d all be best to keep it that way.