Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

Avoid in Eagles QB's game

Nick Foles is working on the knack of eluding hard knocks.

Eagles quarterback Nick Foles. (Michael Bryant/Staff Photographer)
Eagles quarterback Nick Foles. (Michael Bryant/Staff Photographer)Read more

FEELING THE pressure.

A sixth sense.

A clock inside his head.

Avoidability - another of those wonderfully made-up NFL words.

All are used to explain how great quarterbacks without great foot speed manage to walk away from most of their NFL starts with nothing more than cuts on their knuckles. How is Peyton Manning able to play most, if not all, of his team's schedule, year after year? How does Tom Brady do it? Drew Brees?

Eleven times in his 17-season career Dan Marino - who couldn't beat his Hall of Fame bust in a race - started all 16 of his team's games.

"You're going to have, at most, 4 seconds back there," Eagles quarterback Nick Foles was saying yesterday. "So it's really just sidestepping and keeping your eyes down the field and delivering the ball. You see Brady, Brees do a really good job of moving in the pocket, buying more time. You see Manning does a great job of getting the ball out, 1-2-3 hitch, that's it, ball is out, he throws it on time where it's before the guy breaks. So it's really getting that feel for the game. That's just continuing to work out here. Reps."

For the first time in a long time, there is no civic angst about the Eagles' quarterback. Foles earned that. Big time. Twenty-seven touchdowns and only two interceptions, amid an unsettled season that threatened repeatedly to turn southward in a hurry. The Eagles had lost three of their first four games until Michael Vick's hamstring injury thrust Foles into the starter's role against the Giants last year. They were 3-4 after the Cowboys hit, hit and chased Foles around Lincoln Financial Field, eventually knocking him out of the game with a concussion.

He made it back, and he made it through the season and through his first-ever playoff start, but there were moments throughout, moments beyond that body slam, that made you wonder, well, how Vick's rehab was coming along. Foles is a big boy, and is proven tough, but a broken hand after he won the job in 2012, and last year's concussion have made him and his coaches painfully aware that he desperately needs to keep working on one specific aspect of his game.

"Stop being stubborn and looking for the downfield stuff," he said. "Just throw the underneath route."

Put another way, Nick Foles needs to work on how not to get hit. His new quarterbacks coach, Bill Musgrave, mentioned it the other day when asked what he needs improvement on. Yesterday, head coach Chip Kelly talked about his increased command of the offense and his confidence, "Now it's just a matter of refining the little things for him.

"Footwork, handoffs, carrying off fakes. Not the minor details; they are really major details, but he's not worried with where he's going with the ball. It's just, how is he going to do that?"

Those minor/major details can be the difference between a defender laying a lick on Foles or pulling up. It's why those quarterbacks with those inbred clocks tend to feel the pressure and release the ball before being hit, why they are often assigned a sixth sense by those who watch or even coach them. They tend to be among the league's brightest, view their passes as a means to an end and not the end, the way a well-tuned soccer team views its passes.

"I think it's just getting through your reads, understanding the defense," said Foles. "Getting the ball to the right guy even faster. If they're giving you an underneath route or a flat route early, take it. Complete it, complete it, complete it. That way you're getting the ball out on the perimeter, you're making the defense run, you're not taking hits to where the defense can wear you down. It's really all about being on time and completions and getting the ball out of your hand.

"It's concepts. You just understand the timing of a concept. Our protection. You understand if you're hot or not. If you have more time to drop back, you do . . . When to get the ball out of your hands. If you're late on a concept, bad things are going to happen. And that's just repetition. Understanding with film study and doing the drills. Just getting those reps so you know the timing.

"It's almost like that sixth sense that everybody likes to talk about."