Foles Fracture; Vick Starting Season Finale
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Foles Fracture; Vick Starting Season Finale
Les Bowen
Somehow, even Christmas Eve can't be devoid of intrigue and bizarre happenstance when it comes to the Eagles.
Andy Reid announced Monday that an MRI revealed a hairline fracture in the second metacarpal in quarterback Nick Foles' throwing hand, suffered just before halftime of Sunday's loss to the Redskins. The second part of the stunner: Instead of going with Trent Edwards, who has been backing up Foles lately, Reid plans to start Michael Vick in what is very likely to be the final Eagles game for both Reid and Vick.
"That's the direction we're going in, as we speak," Reid said. Reid said Vick, cleared after suffering a concussion Nov. 11, is excited, something Vick spokesman Chris Shigas confirmed to your Eagletarian. Shigas said Vick cherishes the opportunity to "leave it on the field," and obviously, getting a shot at showing potential 2013 employers he is healthy and sharp can't hurt, either.
Reid also said DT Fletcher Cox and LB Mychal Kendricks have concussions. There is no word on their availablity for the finale Sunday at the Giants.
Reid said Foles' injury did not show up on X-rays taken at the stadium Sunday but was visible on the MRI Monday. He said it would typically be a three-week injury.
It seems Foles must have been injured three snaps before Alex Henery's 38-yard field goal, which was kicked with 21 seconds left in the half. Foles was driven into the turf by unblocked Redskins defensive lineman Barry Cofield, as Foles dumped the ball successfully to LeSean McCoy for a short gain. Foles went down face-first, on his hand.
Reid didn't really offer a clear rationale for the turnabout from having Vick in street clothes as the inactive, healthy third quarterback against the Redskins to making him the starter again the next day. When Reid said last week Vick would be the third QB, observers hypothesized that if something should happen to Foles, the Eagles didn't need a quarterback they are likely to discard coming in and muddying the waters with an electrifying performance, and that Vick wasn't looking to take any more brutal hits in a season that has been full of them.
But if any of that were true, Edwards would be starting against the Giants, who still can make the playoffs if they beat the Eagles and several other dominoes fall.
"He's had a couple of weeks of practice here," Reid said of Vick. "I thought the first week, he was a little bit rusty out there, I thought this past week, he threw it around well, he feels good ... He obviously deserves an opportunity to play."
Reid said the choice between Vick and Edwards came down to the fact that Vick "had been the No. 1."
Foles' rookie season is over; the next regime will have to judge his potential off six starts and seven appearances, in which he completed 161 of 265 passes (60.8 percent) for 1,699 yards, six touchdowns and five interceptions. He was sacked 20 times and compiled a 79.1 passer rating. Vick's passer rating this season is nearly identical, 79.2. Vick has completed 58.5 percent of his passes, with 11 touchdowns and nine interceptions.
Reid said his evaluation of Foles is that he's "a quarterback who gives your team the oppportunity to win." He noted that the other rookie quarterbacks he is being evaluated against in this strong QB class have been playing all season (with better offensive lines in front of them and offenses that weren't missing key weapons, as the Eagles have been the past month or so). "He has enough skill and ability to play," Reid said. "It's been a valuable expererience for him, but yeah, you'd love to have one more game."
Reid said Foles "really just needs to play ... Every week, I thought the game slowed down for him."
Reid lauded Foles for finishing the game with a broken hand. He said Foles had some trouble gripping the ball right after the hit, but when he warmed up for the second half, he felt he was good to go. Foles completed 18 of 26 passes for 188 yards in the second half. He said afterward his hand didn't affect the ball he threw short of an open Jeremy Maclin in the end zone in the final seconds, but Reid indicated Monday that the hand might have been a factor.
Yes!!!!!!! Now the NY POST has something to write about the Cry baby VICK!!!!!!!!!!— MRD- foles pocket presence is exciting. did you not see the play where he kept making time for himself moving from right to left never crossing the line of scrimage kinda like bens 8sec play the other week— defroe
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There must be a curse on Philly sports teams.— 4thand10 - This team is a new general manager and several skilled players away from competing for a championship.— rubicon24
- they better not win!— sgamble077
- Yeah, lonewolf--a broken hand. That's no excuse. That couldn't possibly be the reason you couldn't grip the ball well enough to get a good throw. Just an excuse. Which he was classy enough NOT to make.— monsieurms
- You can be assured that Vick will stick it to us and win this final meaningless game and our draft pick will drop from 3 or 4 to 7 or 8.— Bobphxville
- The Eagles go down, by the largest margin in Andy's tenure. The end of Reid and Vick as an Eagle.— dan39564
- only fitting that this dismal season should end this way,of course Vick will go out and have a career game, the Eagles will seal the Giants doom in a convincing manner we will get a weaker draft pick, Reid will go out on a winning note, and the management will need more time to evaluate the situation, prolonging the agony of the end of an Error.— lancesimmens
- Funny, Foles didn't fare any better than Vick behind that line: low QB rating, lots of losses, and injured!— sbdons1982
OK, so his hand was fine when he fumbled and threw a weak wobbler that got easily intercepted. Mix a broken hand with a side-arm flawed delivery and you get that abomination of a pass to maclin in the endzone. Vick on the other hand can throw the perfect spiral every time...but to the wrong team. NIETHER QB IS GOOD. 79.1 to 79.2 QB rating..if you think Foles sucks, Vick sucks just as bad...and for a 10 year vet that is TERRIBLE. Vick can be fine in a run first system..but now that hes 32 he has no long term upside worth keeping. You gotta try to draft the best QB available at #4. Or take DT Star Lutelie or LB Manti Teo or a dominant difference maker for the D. I think even if Foles gets to start next year hes just a stop-gap for 1 to 2 years until they draft a better QB. Also Chip Kelly would be almost as bad as Andy Reid. He is probably the most gimmicky guy out there with a system that would take 3 years or more to implement, and still probably wouldnt work. Just get someone that understands FUNDAMENTALLY SOUND FOOTBALL HOWIE. RUNNING THE BALL AND DEFENSE. RUNNING THE BALL AND DEFENSE. ITS NOT HARD. NO SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS AT HEAD COACH PLEASE. IF THERES ONE THING YOU COULD DO, DO THAT.- Dude....the interception was tipped at the line. Yes the pass to Maclin was bad....but the very next throw to Moore was perfect and the guy dropped a TD that would have tied the game. Your hatred of anything Andy/Howie related is skewing your assessment of Foles. Foles is exactly what you should like in a QB! The anti-Vick....he's big, smart, steps up in the pocket and reads the defense properly. You compare the QBR after a rookie plays 6 games to a 10 year vet like Vick? Please. Give Foles a complete off season with the starters and another full year of working with an NFL staff and he'll be FAR better than VIck. And you are DEAD WRONG ABOUT CHIP KELLEY. He would be GREAT! If you look at his team stats, they RUN MORE THAN THEY THROW. His organizational skills are the best in college football, and NFL teams have been copying his philosophy for years(Patriots). You hire the MIND and not the "system". This isn't 1980. You cannot just line up and run the ball and win a Super Bowl. The Giants won last year with the absolute LAST ranked running game in the NFL. We would be lucky to get Chip Kelley! — cdedrick05
- uhh, cderdrick05...Jaworski himself said Kellys system will NOT work in the NFL. most of those rushing carries are at the end of the game bringing the totals u to 50/50, and even most of them before that are QB scrambles and probably other gimmicky plays to smalll runing backs on the outside. His sytem is another "extreme" outlier of spacing football that does NOT work on the NFL level. These defenses are much better then anything he has ever faced in college, and these guys are bigger and stronger, and even faster then every guy on a college D. NFL defenes will DESTROY his gimmicky junk, knock the QB out, and result in his risky system NEVER WINNING A SUPERBOWL. ITS PROBABLY NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. So let some other dumb team waste 4 years on stupid passing-to-much football, WE JUST SAW THAT FOR THE LAST 14 YEARS. ITS A JOKE. Too many college coaches with "great" vertical attacks come to the NFL to FAIL, HORRIBLY. Think Steve Spurier, Nick Saban, and on and on. Its a completely different game up here and that gimmicky system will get DESTROYED HORRIBLY IN THE PLAYOFFS IF HE EVEN MAKES IT THAT FAR. NOT LIKELY.
- WOW...Foles would have had his SECOND dramatic last second win in the last THREE Games....and Foles did it with a BROKEN HAND...this is hero stuff and this rookie has only played in 5 NFL games....GUTSY game by Nick Foles.— jim35
- Vick has been awful and Vick has LOST FIVE GAMES N A ROW...Vick will lose his SIXTH Game in a row on Sunday....LOL.— jim35
