Is Nick Foles still the guy for the Eagles?

In Chip Kelly's last session with reporters before bunkering in for some bye-week brainstorming, he was asked more questions about reserve tight end Trey Burton (two) than about starting quarterback Nick Foles (zero).

That's remarkable in some ways, but also an indication that Foles has the ability to blend into the wallpaper around here. Through six games, the Eagles have won five times, and Foles has been neither very good nor very bad in any of them. If the team wasn't winning, or if Foles had been egregiously bad, maybe he would be a topic of conversation. As it is, he's just a quarterback who doesn't get talked about very much, a rare species in the NFL.

"It's a great position to be in," Foles said of the 5-1 record at the break. "We still have a lot of season left to go, and I still have a lot of things to improve on, which excites me. You all know how I am. It will be great to have the bye this week to get healthy, get some rest, recoup, and get ready to go."

Yes, we all know how he is. Excited, great, and ready. What we don't know, and what this season is partially about, is finding out how Kelly really feels about Foles. At the moment, because Kelly is nothing if not inscrutable, we know more about what he thinks of Trey Burton.

From the start of their relationship, the pairing of the coach who prefers a mobile quarterback with a 6-foot-6 doorstop seemed doomed. Nothing about the ridiculous season Foles turned in after relieving Michael Vick changed that dynamic, but it made Kelly take another look. So, what is he seeing?

No one expected Foles to replicate the 2013 season in which he threw 27 touchdowns and two interceptions and led the league with a 119.2 quarterback rating. So far this season, Foles has 10 touchdown passes, seven interceptions, and an 82.0 rating. He's been banged around a bit and appeared to favor a sore left shoulder for a few weeks, and took one hellacious dirty hit from Chris Baker of the Redskins as he jogged in the general direction of an interception return.

None of that has seemed to faze Foles, who has resolutely stayed on the field. Backup Mark Sanchez, who had a great training camp, hasn't been required for even a single play. (The last time one Eagles player threw every pass in a season - no backups, no option passes, no fakes, no nothing - was never, and the team began play in 1933. Not sure what system coach Lud Wray was using, but 11 players threw passes in the nine-game 1933 season.)

Interestingly, Foles was banged around a lot more last season and did much better. He was sacked once for every 11 pass attempts in 2013, but has been sacked just seven times this season, once for every 34 pass attempts. He's played behind a tattered offensive line much of this season, so it stands to reason that he's not being sacked because he's getting rid of the ball a lot quicker.

By employing those early reads, Foles might have become a little more predictable, which is reflected in his lower completion percentage and his increased number of interceptions. He's definitely less dangerous, too, but that might be because of the absence of DeSean Jackson, who was one of the few reasons to stand in the pocket and let things develop for a while. In 2013, 25 percent of Foles' completions (51 of 203) went for 20 yards or more. This season, the figure has been nearly cut in half to 13 percent (18 of 141).

Foles can't control some of that, and Kelly is well aware of it. But Foles is also unable to offset the advantage opposing defenses have by ignoring Foles in their head count of potential runners who need to be watched. The coach's fondness for read-option plays is well-known, but he doesn't bother calling them with Foles as his quarterback.

Whether Kelly is fine with Foles as the long-term guy is still unknown. He might have decided - as Arizona coach Bruce Arians suggested last year - that exposing an option quarterback to the speed and brutality of NFL defenses is not a sound idea. If that's the case, he has proven that the team can win with a Nick Foles, who has now started the equivalent of a full season under Kelly and compiled a 13-3 record in those games. As with any other quarterback, of course, he's a lot easier to like when he's throwing more touchdowns and fewer interceptions.

"I will correct those," Foles said of the miscues. "I made a couple of dumb mistakes with the football that I will work on. I can fix those things. They're not over my head, and that's one of the things that I love about this game. You can fix things."

With the team at 5-1 while still trying to get healthy, there wouldn't seem to be much to fix. But this is a different season for Foles, and it might be the one that decides his future. If so, he might even become more interesting to talk about than Trey Burton.

@bobfordsports