Philadelphia Eagles Holding Open Competition for Starting Job
By Josh Hill
The Philadelphia Eagles are a team still far from being complete. They have their head coach and they re-signed Michael Vick but there are still a lot of questions that need to be answered before the team starts moving forward with the Chip Kelly era in Philly. The main question is who will be running one of the most highly anticipated offenses in the NFL?
Obviously, the Eagles — or at least Chip Kelly– still value Michael Vick as they restructured his deal to keep him in town for another year at the fraction of the cost it otherwise would have been. But there’s also the matter of Nick Foles, who proved he is more advanced as an NFL starter than we all thought he was. Trent Edwards is still on an NFL roster as the Eagles have seen it fit to keep him on board moving forward. The Eagles also signed former Oregon quarterback and Chi Kelly project Dennis Dixon, meaning the team is now carrying four quarterbacks into the offseason.
According to Dixon, while Vick is returning and Foles has proven he can be a starter, the Eagles are still going to hold open competition this offseason to see who will be the starter in 2013.
Dixon's understanding is that it's an open QB competition. Said knee injury stunted his career, and has been waiting for this opportunity
— Zach Berman (@ZBerm) February 18, 2013
Nobody is more familiar with Kelly’s offense than Dixon is as he ran it while playing under Kelly at Oregon. If it hadn’t been for an ACL injury during his last season at Oregon, Dixon might have developed into a solid starter in the NFL. Dixon might have been brought in to help Kelly teach the offense but there’s a serious chance that he could be running it by the time the season starts.
We don’t know who the Eagles starter is going to be next season and we won’t find out likely until the preseason. But if one thing is clear, it’s anybody’s job in Philly and even a rookie quarterback can’t be totally ruled out at this point.