FolesView, 9/7/2014: Eggles 34, Jagwires 17

Showing resiliency he'll have to have as the Rams' QB, Nick Foles (27-45-322, 2 TD) overcame an awful first half as the Eagles rallied to an opening day 34-17 win over the Jagwires. Jacksonville lost despite rolling out to a 17-0 lead by way of five first-half sacks and three Foles turnovers. The high-powered Chip Kelly offense looked out of sync from the opening snap - Foles had to throw his first pass away - and sputtered and ground to a halt. They did little on the ground. Foles looks great when he can get rid of the ball quickly, but in the first half, the Jags made him hold on to it, and problems ensued. Foles hit Zach Ertz perfectly down the seam for 20-25 to get the Eggles' opening drive going, but coughed the ball up on a sack the next play. Foles recognized the Jags rotating coverage and smartly didn't force the ball to his first read, but before he could make his next read, Jason Peters had gotten beat. A supposed all-pro has to do better than that on the opening series of the doggone season. Don't blame that sack on Foles. The next drive, Foles humorously "sprung" Shady McCoy for a 10-yard cutback run, cleverly getting in the DE's way without taking on any contact. After that, though, Foles might have wished he'd stuck to blocking. He threw a bad deep ball, over the wrong shoulder, for Jordan Matthews open behind the secondary, missing a chance at a TD. The whole half Foles had trouble finding receivers. He double-pumped on almost every dropback, including the second sack/fumble, which was all his fault. He got forever to throw, pumped once, then held the ball out and down by his thigh instead of re-setting. That just invited trouble, which came in happily without even bringing a side dish. Philly's third drive was little better and squandered great field position. Jeremy Maclin dropped a quick pass, not the greatest throw but catchable, and Foles settled for a dumpoff on 3rd-and-11. Foles got outplayed by Chad Freaking Henne the whole first half, too, as the Jagwire QB repeatedly stroked nice deep passes behind pathetic play by the Eggle secondary. Down 17-0, Foles responded by nearly getting picked off trying to force a pass to Maclin, and on 3rd-and-11, the Jagwire pass rush was on him in roughly a blink for their third sack. Foles finally got the Eggles in scoring range after a missed Jagwire TD, hitting Matthews in stride on a crossing route for 30, and firing a bullet to Maclin at the 5.

But just when the tide appeared to be turning, Foles put up a woeful end zone throw picked off easily by Alan Ball. Nick got fooled there. At the moment he threw, Brent Celek had gotten a great release on the slot DB, but the Jags were rotating coverage again, and a back-pedaling Ball moved in right on time. A blocked FG got Foles another chance before halftime, but mainly another chance to get pounded. He double-pumped and found Riley Cooper at midfield, but the next play, took a late hit (no flag from the incompetent Jeff Triplette) and got up limping with an apparent knee injury. (Get used to no flags for late hits now that you're a Rams QB.) Foles then got sacked a FOURTH time on 2nd down and settled for a dumpoff on 3rd-and-long. The Jagwires bailed him out once with a penalty but the Eggles continued to look completely out of sync. Foles threw a dumb deep ball into double coverage and was only spared a third INT because Jonathan Cyprien hit his head HARD on the turf and lost the ball while flat on his back unconscious. (That would prove a crucial injury for the Jags.) Foles avoided a couple of sacks after that but still got splattered for the FIFTH time at the 2:00 warning. Three Jags beat their blocks to blow up a screen pass where  Foles couldn't even get his arm cocked before getting hit. At least he fell on the loose ball. A miserable first half ended with Maclin getting tangled up in the end zone on an improvised deep ball.

Foles' first half was terrible - 12-24-139, 3 turnovers, 5 sacks - but he wasn't exactly getting a lot of help. Open receivers were rare. The Eggle WRs were all playing small and non-physical and the Jagwires were taking it to them. Pass protection was all-or-nothing. LG play was especially bad. Evan Mathis stunk on ice, and when he left the game after getting rolled up on, his replacement was even worse. And it took a long time to get the TEs and RBs more involved in the passing game. I assume Kelly calls the plays, though I am nostalgic for the chance to blame Pat Shurmur. Nick Foles is an accurate QB, lacks a great deep arm, throws pretty well on the move and looks especially good when he's getting the ball out really quickly, all very much like the guy he was traded for. The first half of this game, he saw all the conditions he's going to see as the Rams' QB. And it did not go well. At all.

It took several explosive plays by Darren Sproles, including a 40-plus-yard TD run on 4th down, to get the Eggles' fire lit. A couple of plays before that run, Foles badly missed another opportunity to hit Matthews wide open, this time over the middle, but the throw was again well behind him. It  looked like the Jag coverage scheme got much softer with Cyprien out, though, and Foles started taking advantage with a lot of his bread-and-butter, short, quick throws. The quick passing and the success of the running game now seemed to cool off the Jagwire pass rush, which was silent in the 2nd half.  On 3rd-and-5 the next drive, Foles feathered a perfect 25-yard TD pass to Ertz, who got behind the LBs on a simple post route and was wide open at the goal line between the safeties. Foles made a couple more nice throws on the move in the 3rd but took till the 4th getting the game tied up. He was key to that FG drive, though, with a strong sideline throw to Matthews on 3rd-and-6 and another 20-25-yarder to Ertz up the seam. Foles also survived another big late hit that wasn't flagged. He followed the FG drive with everyone's favorite, a 1-play TD drive, with a 68-yard bomb to Maclin. Cyprien's replacement bit extra-hard on a play-fake, which Foles/Kelly do a LOT, and Maclin was all alone behind the secondary, with time to stop and wait for the long ball before cruising away for the lead. That basically won the game. Henne, whose 2nd half was as bad as Foles' 1st, blew a 4th-down pass deep in his own end that gifted Philly a FG, and Fletcher Cox tacked on a defensive TD in the final minute for the 34-17 final score.

So, from this game, we see that Nick Foles is nothing if not resilient. That's a great leadership quality not to be dismissed lightly. Kind of like Sam Bradford, he's good-to-very-good making quick reads and getting the ball out quickly. Kind of like Sam Bradford, his arm is good enough to make strong short-area sideline passes. And, kind of like Sam Bradford, he has some athleticism and mobility but it's not a part of his game he uses that much to make plays. He very much sticks with his throws and didn't take off upfield once despite all the pass pressure he got. Bradford's deep ball rarely impressed me, but Foles' looked worse here, as he lacked timing and accuracy. After his eye-popping 27 TD, 2 INT 2013 season, the Jags made Nick Foles look pretty ordinary a lot of this game.

Obviously, this is only one game, but the first half of it is a worry looking ahead to Nick Foles QBing the Rams. With a defense taking the quick passing game away, he didn't look any better than Austin Davis looked last year in similar conditions. Foles' biggest advantage is his quick thinking and quick throwing, and with all the pass-action he did in Philly, he'll be a natural to do a lot of that in St. Louis. The Ram offense hasn't been the quick-throwing offense Foles ran in Philadelphia, though. Jared Cook has yet to prove the kind of reliable TE target he had in Ertz, and the Rams have no receiver playing at Maclin's speed and level. The o-line will have three new starters and may start two rookies, a 2nd-year tackle and a center with no career starts. The Rams gained some advantages when they dealt Bradford for Foles; namely, healthy knees (I think) and a 2nd-round pick in 2016. But to have an advantage when they actually have Foles under center, they may have to depend on the kind of resilience he showed in this game.

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