Ertz Thinks Foles Can Reach Luck Status
Nick Foles did not receive a full endorsement from Jeffrey Lurie or Chip Kelly this week. But one key piece to this offense moving forward sounded quite confident that Foles would be the one throwing him the ball in 2015.
“Oh yeah, definitely,” said Zach Ertz. “Obviously I don’t make those decisions but as a player that has played with him, we’ve won a lot of games together. I think that’s the ultimate key of a quarterback is to win games, put your team in a very good position to win games, and at the end of the day we did that.
“I think we know what we have in Nick, I think management knows what they have in Nick, and we think he’s a franchise quarterback.”
Ertz and Foles developed a relationship early on last season when Ertz was playing sparingly as a rookie and Foles was still the backup to Michael Vick. Watch the pre-game warm-ups, and you’ll see them routinely emerge from the tunnel together to get in a one-on-one catch hours before kickoff.
The second-year tight end has always been complimentary of Foles. On Monday, he referenced one of the best signal-callers in the game when speaking about his quarterback’s potential.
“I’ve played with one of the most special guys in the league in Andrew Luck, and I don’t think Nick is necessarily on that level yet but I think with his work ethic that he can be one day,” said Ertz, who was teammates with Luck at Stanford.
What makes you think he can get to Luck’s level?
“Just his work ethic. He tries very hard and he has all the intangibles as well that Andrew kind of has: that big, strong arm, he can make every throw; he moves well in the pocket. Nick can make all the throws and he’s a great leader as well.”
That’s certainly a high bar. The Eagles don’t need Foles to be Luck, but they do need him to be closer to the Nick Foles of 2013 compared to the version that took the field this year, where he completed under 60 percent of his throws and turned the ball over 13 times in less than eight games.
“A lot of linemen were banged up early on,” said Ertz. “We never played with our true starting line I would say throughout the entire season, which is tough. He may have had happy feet in the beginning because there was pressure in his face a lot, and then when there wasn’t pressure he thought there maybe was pressure. I don’t know what was going on in his head. But I mean, he knew going in that he wasn’t going to have 27 touchdowns and two interceptions like he had the year before. But how he started the season and with that touchdown to interception rate, I don’t think that’s his standard, I think he knows he can get better and I think that’s what he expects out of himself.”
Practice squad moves
The Eagles announced that they have come to terms with nine practice squad players: OL Josh Andrews, RB Kenjon Barner, OL Kevin Graf, DL Wade Keliikipi, QB G.J. Kinne, WR Will Murphy, WR Quron Pratt, S Ed Reynolds and RB Matthew Tucker.