Foles' play of the day: Not folding

EARLIER THIS summer, Pat Shurmur was talking long and reflectively about young quarterbacks and learning curves.

Not their learning curves.

His.

They used to make him very, very angry, the Eagles offensive coordinator said, when they did the kind of things that Nick Foles did in the first half of yesterday's game, and frankly did throughout the second half of the 34-17 victory over Jacksonville as well.

Whether it was Sam Bradford in St. Louis, Colt McCoy or Brandon Weeden in Cleveland, those young guys would torture their coach by holding the ball too long, blowing up perfectly good play calls. Or a sack, a hit, a fumble, and they would get happy feet, throwing balls too high or too wide or too short.

Or maybe they would air their emotions for all their fans and teammates to see, as Nick Foles did early in the second quarter yesterday, pounding the ground in frustration after he was tripped up and sacked for the fifth time, his team already down 17-nil due largely to his miscues.

"One of the things I learned from Mike Holmgren in Cleveland," Shurmur said that day, "is that your quarterback needs to know that you believe in him. That no matter what is happening out there, you're going to help him make it right.

"It's something I'll never forget."

And so Foles never felt yesterday that his coaches were losing faith in him. Not after his indecision led to those two first-quarter strips and two first-quarter touchdowns. Not after his awful interception from the 5 into the end zone sabotaged a scoring drive and mangled much-needed momentum in the second quarter. Not after he missed wildly wide-open Jordan Matthews down the middle of the field in the first quarter. Not after his first pass after falling behind 17-0 threaded dangerously through the three Jacksonville defensive backs who had shrouded Jeremy Maclin.

Short circuit after short circuit after short circuit, Foles came to the sideline and met Chip Kelly, or quarterbacks coach Bill Musgrave or slapped the headphones on for a chat with Shurmur up in the booth.

"Bill talked to him," Kelly said. "I talked to him a few times. I could see why he was frustrated. I was frustrated. I think everybody was frustrated. I heard a few fans that were frustrated, too.

"Go figure. But they had every right. I was booing myself."

Actually, Kelly wasn't. Not really. The plays were there, he said repeatedly, the zone that Jacksonville's defense threw at them had been anticipated. And while he and Shurmur were reluctant to say that Foles was paralyzed at times by indecision against those zones, the refreshingly honest quarterback - starting the first game of the season for the first time in his professional career - was not.

"I just made mistakes," Foles said. "I really just have to get the ball out a little faster. It's as simple as that. It's on me."

When the butt-ugly first half ended, Foles had completed 12 of 24 attempts for 139 yards. His drowning passer rating gurgled at 50.5, and the press-box cackling about Donovan McNabb finally being right about something involving quarterbacks was garnering predictable belly laughs.

All offseason and into this long, arduous summer, opinions about where Foles' career was headed were as varied as his throws yesterday. The two interceptions last season amid 27 touchdowns bolstered believers, while skeptics wondered aloud about the true meaning of that fiasco game against Dallas, and about how he would react in games when the ground around him caved in.

Yesterday was such a game. Foles completed 15 of 21 passes in the second half, including two clutch throws that resulted in touchdowns. The first, a 25-yard down-the-middle, third-quarter strike to Zach Ertz at the goal line on third-and-5 may have been his signature throw of the day, and pulled the Eagles to within three points. The second, off a well-conceived play-action, sprung Jeremy Maclin alone deep into Jacksonville's secondary, and pushed the Eagles ahead, 24-17, finally, with just under 7 minutes to play.

All in all it was choppy, and mostly unsightly, but when it was over he had finished with 322 yards passing and a passer rating of 87.5, and his offense had put 27 points on the board. More instructively, his finish provided a little more insight into who he is, and more importantly, what he can become.

I asked Shurmur if he learned anything about Foles yesterday.

"I think so," he said. "I think I learned that he can battle through something. Because this would have been a tough way to start the year. That's part of being a pro, too. When you've got the ball every single play and things aren't going right, you just have to keep trying to find yourself."

A few days before Shurmur spoke this summer, I had asked Foles what he thought he needed to improve on the most. Dealing through adversity and fighting through it, he responded quickly.

"You just have to keep your composure," he said after the victory over the Jags. "You can't get frustrated. I mean, it's definitely frustrating for a second, but then you have to keep your cool. Because your teammates are looking to you in those situations."

Yesterday, he did just that, a damage-control performance that keeps him on that pedestal for another week - albeit with a few noticeable cracks that will need quick repair.

On Twitter: @samdonnellon

Columns: ph.ly/Donnellon