Eagles' Further Review: Just a bad day for Eagles' Foles?

RESIST THE temptation to analyze this loss too deeply.

Film review of the 17-3 setback to the Dallas Cowboys doesn't need to say anything more than "the Eagles lost because Nick Foles was terrible." Period. Talk all you want, as Chip Kelly did yesterday, about the entire offense being "out of sync," or the fact that Dallas stuffed the run and brought pass-rush pressure even without DeMarcus Ware. (Swarm with enough people, you're going to stop the run, or at least slow it to a crawl. The quarterback has to make some plays to back the defense off. Foles couldn't do that. And the pass-rush pressure wasn't extraordinary.)

In the NFL of 2013, if your quarterback is awful, you lose. Yeah, Brandon Carr did a capable job of covering DeSean Jackson. But there were at least a couple of plays in which Jackson was behind the defense and should have gotten the ball for a touchdown. That would have been the difference between a bad day and a great day for Jackson, who hurts an opponent more with quality than quantity. Foles didn't make that happen.

The same thing happened to the Eagles against the Chiefs, though Michael Vick wasn't as bad that night as Foles was Sunday. Some Vick supporters thought I was unnecessarily harsh after that game, for pointing out that the efficiency difference between Vick and Alex Smith was the difference in the game. I don't know if there's a Foles supporter left out there, but if there is, he or she will probably feel the same way about these words.

Bottom line, though: If Tony Romo, who wasn't real good Sunday, had swapped jerseys with Foles, the Eagles would have won.

I wasn't shocked that Foles had a bad day, a week after being named NFC Offensive Player of the Week. That happens with inexperienced QBs, especially inexperienced QBs without great pedigrees. I was surprised with how he was bad. Last year, when Foles was a rookie, a bad game meant Foles was doing what Matt Barkley did Sunday: following a couple of good decisions with a terrible one, turning the ball over.

Foles didn't turn the ball over against Dallas. To turn it over, you have to be willing to throw it, which Foles all too often was not. Then you have to put it somewhere where somebody, in one uniform or another, has a shot at catching it. This also happened all too infrequently.

I have never questioned Foles' makeup. I've questioned whether he has an elite arm, whether his slow feet can keep him from being Kelly's guy long-term. Never even thought about him coming apart out there. Not a nervous guy, at all.

Foles didn't come apart as a rookie, behind a bad offensive line, with most of his weapons sidelined. As Kelly pointed out yesterday, Foles didn't come apart when he was thrust into the Oct. 7 Giants game abruptly and asked to lead a long drive for a field goal before the half.

A cynic might say this is the first time Foles has really played with anything on the line - the dubious honor of being in first place in the NFC East after Week 7, or the more tangible opportunity to take the job away from Vick with another player-of-the-week-type performance.

I was returning from a funeral Sunday and didn't see the game live. When I heard how Foles had played, and that he was being evaluated for a concussion, I wondered whether he'd suffered it early and kept playing. That does not seem to have been the case, though Foles took some rattling hits, two of them on the very first series.

Kelly seemed especially frustrated yesterday, having watched the film without the chance to discuss it with Foles, who has entered the NFL concussion protocol. One terrible game doesn't disqualify Foles from ever becoming a starter, any more than one really good game the week before ensured his future. But it was a deeply troubling, terrible game. Guy is getting fooled by coverage, sometimes you can fix that. Guy can't function when the stakes get raised? That's a dealbreaker.

* The DeMeco Ryans interception was one chance to turn the game around that Nick Foles couldn't convert. Another was after Chip Kelly won a challenge for the first time all season, negating a Dallas third-down conversion throw to Miles Austin. Eagles get the ball, Foles misses Jeff Maehl, Foles under no pressure. LeSean McCoy runs 6 yards, setting up third-and-4. Then Foles misses DeSean Jackson over the middle.

* We need a new stat for kickoff returns. Damaris Johnson has a 25.7-yard average, not bad, especially considering he doesn't have anything longer than 33 yards, to jack up the total. But if you watch the Eagles, you know that the first 8 of those 25.7 yards usually are logged in the end zone. Just about every time, Johnson would be better off taking a knee. I've never seen a returner run harder into tacklers. Either he has no vision, or the Birds have the worst blockers in special-teams history. Maybe both.

* The Eagles might actually get their money's worth from that 3-year, $12 million James Casey contract, if the emergency QB has to play. One way to get him on the field.

That the Eagles were going to draft a quarterback with their first pick in 2014? You did? Yeah, me, too.

Jason Avant, DeSean Jackson, Brent Celek, Jeff Maehl and Bryce Brown on Sunday: 29 targets, seven catches.

The Fox broadcast Sunday noted that this was the first time Chip Kelly had gone scoreless in a first half as a college or pro head coach. Kelly was asked yesterday whether he'd been aware of that, and if so, how it felt.

"I don't think you look back and say, 'Hey, I've never been in this situation before. Why is this happening to us?' " Kelly said. "It's, 'Hey, what do we have to do? What's going to work? Let's make some adjustments here.' "

On Twitter: @LesBowen

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