When Chip Kelly signed on as the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, the belief was that his offense would be able to revolutionize the NFL and excite fans from around the league. With a mobile quarterback like Michael Vick, everyone thought that he was the man who could lead the offense.
However, Nick Foles was the acting back up and he has had far more success in the offense, but even Foles did not imagine the success he has had when he first learned of the signing.
Foles admits that at first he was skeptical of the offense, but he is quickly becoming a believer.
“When I hadn’t talked to Chip, and when I first heard the news (of his hire), it does get in your mind, ‘Alright, well, I’ve seen their quarterbacks run all over the place and do all that crazy stuff,” Foles told NFL Media’s Albert Breer this week. “So yeah, of course, you do think that. But that was before I got here, before I’d seen a playbook, before I talked to him about what he wanted to do.
“The thing I was feeling was just to be smart with it. Trust the reads, trust my preparation, and then feel the game. It’s little things like that where I took chances, but my preparation allowed me to do that, I wasn’t just guessing. It was like, ‘This is what I was looking for’, and I started keying defenders, instead of just reading the routes.”
After an NFL record-tying seven touchdown performance, it is easy to become a believer.
By reading the defenders, Foles has had far more success than Vick in the Kelly offense. If he can continue to develop and make the quick reads that have led to his success, Foles will make everyone in the league more confident in Kelly’s offense then they were when it struggled out of the gates.