Remind Me - Why Didn't We Make a Run at Nick Foles?

[SoTier]

1 hour ago, The Frankish Reich said:

OK. you officially have Folesophobia. Or maybe Tyrodomania. So let’s ask the next diagnostic question:  you are an NFL GM. You need a veteran QB. Assume both Foles and Tyrod are available as unrestricted free agents, and assume their respective agents have signaled that they will both sign 2 year deals on equivalent financial terms. Assume all other things are equal (you can factor in injury risk if you’d like, but no fair speculating that either one may have a hidden injury right now; assume both will be healthy at the time of signing). These are the only two choices. No “I’d draft someone/I’d trade for Alex Smith” responses allowed. 

Which one do you sign?

A. Foles

B. Tyrod

And please justify your choice. 

 

I want option C. Taylor with the Eagles offense backed up by the Eagles defense.  Get a clue: Foles is playing in a QB friendly system that Pedersen and his staff have tailored to his strengths. He has one of the best if not the best OL in the NFL protecting him, a top notch running game, and good NFL quality receivers.  Tyrod Taylor played in a system that didn't fit him behind an OL that struggled most of the season to protect the QB and open holes for the RBs.  He had only 1 NFL quality WR, and only late in the season.   Switch Foles and Taylor in 2017, and you'd be whining about why ever did we dump Taylor for Foles.

 

Whether you have a great QB or a crappy one, the guys around him are going to contribute to his success.  It's a team game and you can't ignore that.    In a better offensive system, Taylor has looked better with less talent (2015 and 2016) than Foles has looked except for 2013 under Chip Kelly and the last two games with Philly.   Some really lousy QBs have managed to look good for a few games, so I'd go with Taylor.

 

 

Edited January 22, 2018 by SoTier

[BeginnersMind]

7 hours ago, baskingridgebillsfan said:

it is not just foles.  They passed a bunch of vets over the last thee years.  And Taylor did not lead them anywhere , he went along for the ride.  

 

You shortchange Tyrod. He’s been a solid QB when you add his rushing yards and lack of turnovers. I don’t want him as starter but he’s not Johnny Manziel. 

 

I don’t want the Bills to give the farm for Foles. But if they got him in a reasonable trade, he’s about all I expect this off/season. Tom Brady isn’t out there as a free agent people. And in the draft, the Bills pick too low to get a monster. It’s going to be a retread. Foles. Smith. Bradford. Of those three, I pick Foles with an eye on Bradford. 

Edited January 22, 2018 by BeginnersMind

[Jauronimo]

Do we really need these threads every time some journey man stumbles across a good game?  Where was this thread during Foles last 4 outings?

 

 

[Alphadawg7]

20 hours ago, The Frankish Reich said:

5 years, $27.5 million with certain incentives and "escalators" that could add another $11 million.  So if he performs well, the top end is 38.5 million. And if he performs poorly, it is essentially voidable by the Eagles after 2 years.

 

Tyrod: 2 years, $30.5 million.

 

And he is obviously a better fit for the Dennison offense than Tyrod was. For those of you who'd say, "where we you when he was a free agent" - I was right here, suggesting that Foles was far and away the best "bridge" QB free agent out there ....

 

Welcome to the world of hindsight.  Foles destroyed his reputation playing awful for the Rams.  No one here or around the league was looking at Foles as an answer, in fact, the few times it was brought up everyone would pile on and say he sucks.  Just like everyone said Keenum sucks.  

 

So, cant go back and now pretend Foles was a clear cut guy for us and we screwed the pooch.  No one wanted him, which is why he signed on to the Eagles to backup their franchise QB they just drafted despite so many teams who needed a QB.

 

But around these parts, hindsight threads are wildly popular.

Edited January 22, 2018 by Alphadawg7

[Solomon Grundy]

I got trolled and almost laughed off TSW when I mentioned this.

[Alphadawg7]

The answer is the same reason we didn't draft Tom Brady or Kurt Warner.  Because no one has hindsight when the opportunities are there.  Foles was QB fodder when he was cut from the Rams.

Edited January 22, 2018 by Alphadawg7

[Bleeding Bills Blue]

21 hours ago, The Frankish Reich said:

Would Tyrod, even in your wildest dreams, have played this strong a half against the best defense in the NFL? You're in the "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good" territory here ...

 

No - but i do think the eagles win that game with Tyrod playing QB.  

[NastyNateSoldiers]

21 hours ago, jmc12290 said:

Because Tyrod is our QB. And he puts a magic spell on his own coaches that make them all fire OC's for not making him perfect.

That's what Tyrod did to Mcd, Mcd is a sucker for hard work to a fault.  I say that because he looks like he puts that ahead of everything including being talented. Tyrod showed up everyday in offseason working his tail off. Mcd was sold no matter the short comings as a passer.

[OldTimeAFLGuy]

1 hour ago, Alphadawg7 said:

 

Welcome to the world of hindsight.  Foles destroyed his reputation playing awful for the Rams.  No one here or around the league was looking at Foles as an answer, in fact, the few times it was brought up everyone would pile on and say he sucks.  Just like everyone said Keenum sucks.  

 

So, cant go back and now pretend Foles was a clear cut guy for us and we screwed the pooch.  No one wanted him, which is why he signed on to the Eagles to backup their franchise QB they just drafted despite so many teams who needed a QB.

 

But around these parts, hindsight threads are wildly popular.

 

.....funny how that works around here....wasn't Keenum the most prolific passer in NCAA history and was a UDFA out of Houston?....certainly NOT diminishing his 2017 accomplishments by any means......how many wanted The Cutlet?....or.....Glennon?.......Kaep (done-figured out)?....RG II 5/8 (WELL done)?.......Kolb was probably in the top 5 worst signings in OBD history.....became a commodity because of a few games in Philly and 'Zona signed him to big bucks......and despite having no less than FIVE known concussions, OBD signs him to be the vet presence despite his suspect noodle....and then "The Mat".......

[Big Turk]

Because you obviously didn't watch the other games he played in this year before making this thread.

[Freddie's Dead]

Foles is a Dow Joneser.  Right now he's hot.  Back when we had a shot at him, he wasn't.  

[Big Gun]

9 hours ago, 26CornerBlitz said:

 

TT has never had a big contract from an NFL QB perspective and if it were up to Whaley he wouldn't have been a Buffalo Bill in 2017.  The fact that he's still around was a McDermott decision.  At any rate, Foles is a backup QB at the NFL level. 

So what does that say about your boy Tyrod because Foles is 100x better than Tyrod. 

[The Frankish Reich]

2 hours ago, SoTier said:

 

I want option C. Taylor with the Eagles offense backed up by the Eagles defense.  Get a clue: Foles is playing in a QB friendly system that Pedersen and his staff have tailored to his strengths. He has one of the best if not the best OL in the NFL protecting him, a top notch running game, and good NFL quality receivers.  Tyrod Taylor played in a system that didn't fit him behind an OL that struggled most of the season to protect the QB and open holes for the RBs.  He had only 1 NFL quality WR, and only late in the season.   Switch Foles and Taylor in 2017, and you'd be whining about why ever did we dump Taylor for Foles.

 

Whether you have a great QB or a crappy one, the guys around him are going to contribute to his success.  It's a team game and you can't ignore that.    In a better offensive system, Taylor has looked better with less talent (2015 and 2016) than Foles has looked except for 2013 under Chip Kelly and the last two games with Philly.   Some really lousy QBs have managed to look good for a few games, so I'd go with Taylor.

 

 

People will obviously see what they want to see. The offense was "tailored to Foles' strengths?" Curious to be tailoring your offense around your backup QB's talents.  I thought the offense was tailored to the strengths of their actual starting QB, a QB known for his mobility .... yes, they changed things up a bit when Foles took over, which is probably part of the reason his first couple games weren't very impressive.  

And I keep hearing "but Foles was benched for Case Keenum," as if Tyrod was never benched for .... the great Nathan Peterman.

1 hour ago, matter2003 said:

Because you obviously didn't watch the other games he played in this year before making this thread.

No, I didn't. But I did watch every single game Mr. Taylor played this year, and remember, in making this thread I was saying that the Bills were fools for re-signing Taylor when a somewhat better QB was (1) available; (2) cheaper. I also know that: (3) Tyrod Taylor has never had a sustained run of excellent play akin to Foles' 2013 10-game run; (4) Tyrod Taylor has never, and will never, have a single game as good as Foles had yesterday against the worst defense in the league, something Foles did against the best defense in the league; (5) Tyrod was re-signed to allow management to embark on the fools errand of making him a pocket passer adept at timing routes, something that Nick Foles seems reasonably proficient at (and has been quite proficient at over the course of his career).

Edited January 23, 2018 by The Frankish Reich

[stuvian]

Foles looks like a system guy 

[transplantbillsfan]

9 hours ago, Alphadawg7 said:

 

Welcome to the world of hindsight.  Foles destroyed his reputation playing awful for the Rams.  No one here or around the league was looking at Foles as an answer, in fact, the few times it was brought up everyone would pile on and say he sucks.  Just like everyone said Keenum sucks.  

 

So, cant go back and now pretend Foles was a clear cut guy for us and we screwed the pooch.  No one wanted him, which is why he signed on to the Eagles to backup their franchise QB they just drafted despite so many teams who needed a QB.

 

But around these parts, hindsight threads are wildly popular.

 

This is why I'll be minimally here over the next couple months likely til FA gets going.

 

The conversations the next couple months are going to be pointless because everyone is going to use those hindsight goggles to say how we should have gone out to get Nick Foles or Case Keenum.

 

Neither of them were worth getting then and still aren't worth getting.

 

First of all, both of those guys are seriously products of the fantastic offensive players around them combined with excellent offensive play callers.

 

Think Foles or Keenum seriously would have been successful with Dinosaur Dennison (who has NEVER had any real success as an OC, anyway and just got fired for a reason), twin stone hand Clay (good TE... problem with the dropsies) & Jones (who sucked this year... pray he's better next year), Jordan Matthews, an injured Kelvin Benjamin and Deonte Thompson as opposed to  Shurmer (who earned a HC gig

for his work with a blah QB), Rudolph, well good GOD just look at the contrast WRs of Diggs, Thielan, Wright, Floyd, Treadwell OR Reich (miss him) as OC & Pederson as an

offe minded HC, Ertz & Celek, Agholor, Jeffrey and Torrey Smith.

 

This goes without talking about how both the Vikings and Eagles have excellent offensive lines that have provided great pass protection.

 

 

What's annoying is that I hope like hell that the Eagles win the Super Bowl while knowing people are going to suddenly idiotically start talking about Foles as a Franchise QB.

 

Dude... he's a fringe starter at best who's riding the coat tails of all the players and coaches around him.

 

Really hope the Eagles win. Doesn't change what Foles is.

 

We want better in Buffalo and this is the offseason we finally do that rather than settling for retreads like Foles, Keenum, Smith or McCown!

 

Darnold/Mayfield/Rudolph or bust!!!  

[WhitewalkerInPhilly]

12 hours ago, The Frankish Reich said:

People will obviously see what they want to see. The offense was "tailored to Foles' strengths?" Curious to be tailoring your offense around your backup QB's talents.  I thought the offense was tailored to the strengths of their actual starting QB, a QB known for his mobility .... yes, they changed things up a bit when Foles took over, which is probably part of the reason his first couple games weren't very impressive.  

And I keep hearing "but Foles was benched for Case Keenum," as if Tyrod was never benched for .... the great Nathan Peterman.

 

No, I didn't. But I did watch every single game Mr. Taylor played this year, and remember, in making this thread I was saying that the Bills were fools for re-signing Taylor when a somewhat better QB was (1) available; (2) cheaper. I also know that: (3) Tyrod Taylor has never had a sustained run of excellent play akin to Foles' 2013 10-game run; (4) Tyrod Taylor has never, and will never, have a single game as good as Foles had yesterday against the worst defense in the league, something Foles did against the best defense in the league; (5) Tyrod was re-signed to allow management to embark on the fools errand of making him a pocket passer adept at timing routes, something that Nick Foles seems reasonably proficient at (and has been quite proficient at over the course of his career).

 

Dude, you are not listening to us. Believe me, you are whistling a different tune if you have followed his career over the past five or so years like Philly natives have.

 

You have not seen his bad games. His good games make Tyrod look small, but his bad games make Tyrod look like Russel Wilson. The last few years had seen a stretch of really bad play, and he didn't even throw the ball all preseason because he was rehabbing from an injury. Few GMs are going to throw big money at a guy whos last success was five years ago. You are basing this gut reaction based on one really, really good game.

 

Yes, he had a very good run in 2013. It was also, as I have pointed out, with an offensive system that was brand new to the NFL which coordinators had not caught up with yet, along with a Pro Bowl level Desean Jackdon, Shady having his best rushing year ever, and an offensive line that was graded out as the best in the NFL.

 

You are making a call 100% on hindsight, ignoring all the games from the past three years when Foles looked like a bottom feeder instead of an All Pro, and disregarding the fact that, gee, the Eagles are really good this year. Before Wentz was hurt, they were considered an early Superbowl Champ favorite, Wentz lead the league in touchdowns and they had the best third down conversion rating in the league by a large margin. Your logic is what made teams go "Maybe there is something is Matt Cassel, he led the Patriots to an 11-5 season after all one year after the 18-1 year"

[Big Gun]

13 minutes ago, WhitewalkerInPhilly said:

 

Dude, you are not listening to us. Believe me, you are whistling a different tune if you have followed his career over the past five or so years like Philly natives have.

 

You have not seen his bad games. His good games make Tyrod look small, but his bad games make Tyrod look like Russel Wilson. The last few years had seen a stretch of really bad play, and he didn't even throw the ball all preseason because he was rehabbing from an injury. Few GMs are going to throw big money at a guy whos last success was five years ago. You are basing this gut reaction based on one really, really good game.

 

Yes, he had a very good run in 2013. It was also, as I have pointed out, with an offensive system that was brand new to the NFL which coordinators had not caught up with yet, along with a Pro Bowl level Desean Jackdon, Shady having his best rushing year ever, and an offensive line that was graded out as the best in the NFL.

 

You are making a call 100% on hindsight, ignoring all the games from the past three years when Foles looked like a bottom feeder instead of an All Pro, and disregarding the fact that, gee, the Eagles are really good this year. Before Wentz was hurt, they were considered an early Superbowl Champ favorite, Wentz lead the league in touchdowns and they had the best third down conversion rating in the league by a large margin. Your logic is what made teams go "Maybe there is something is Matt Cassel, he led the Patriots to an 11-5 season after all one year after the 18-1 year"

Really, i'm guessing you missed Tyrods 56 and 65 yard games! 

 

Just stop with this ****, Foles is much better than Tyrod and it isn't even close.

[SoTier]

13 hours ago, The Frankish Reich said:

People will obviously see what they want to see. The offense was "tailored to Foles' strengths?" Curious to be tailoring your offense around your backup QB's talents.  I thought the offense was tailored to the strengths of their actual starting QB, a QB known for his mobility .... yes, they changed things up a bit when Foles took over, which is probably part of the reason his first couple games weren't very impressive.  

And I keep hearing "but Foles was benched for Case Keenum," as if Tyrod was never benched for .... the great Nathan Peterman.

 

You should have been looking in a mirror when you typed that first sentence since the announcers during the Eagles Vikings game made the very statement that after Wentz went down, the Eagles staff started tailoring the offense to fit Foles which was why he looked so much better the last two games he played than the previous ones: they had changed the offense.  Foles looked good over a single season when he was in a run-and-gun style offense for a talented team that took NFL DCs by surprise for a while.  He's looked good for a couple of games in an offense that's been altered to fit him on a team that's very talented on both sides of the ball.  In between, Foles has failed to impress anybody, and that's why the Bills weren't interested in signing him.

 

Maybe instead of whining about the Bills sticking with Taylor as their starter, maybe you should really ask why the Bills didn't have somebody better than Peterman as their backup ... like Foles, who signed with Philly for backup QB money.  The Bills could have signed Foles as Taylor's backup y'know rather than going with a fifth round rookie.

 

 

 

[The Frankish Reich]

5 hours ago, transplantbillsfan said:

 

This is why I'll be minimally here over the next couple months likely til FA gets going.

 

The conversations the next couple months are going to be pointless because everyone is going to use those hindsight goggles to say how we should have gone out to get Nick Foles or Case Keenum.

 

Neither of them were worth getting then and still aren't worth getting.

 

First of all, both of those guys are seriously products of the fantastic offensive players around them combined with excellent offensive play callers.

 

Think Foles or Keenum seriously would have been successful with Dinosaur Dennison (who has NEVER had any real success as an OC, anyway and just got fired for a reason), twin stone hand Clay (good TE... problem with the dropsies) & Jones (who sucked this year... pray he's better next year), Jordan Matthews, an injured Kelvin Benjamin and Deonte Thompson as opposed to  Shurmer (who earned a HC gig

for his work with a blah QB), Rudolph, well good GOD just look at the contrast WRs of Diggs, Thielan, Wright, Floyd, Treadwell OR Reich (miss him) as OC & Pederson as an

offe minded HC, Ertz & Celek, Agholor, Jeffrey and Torrey Smith.

 

This goes without talking about how both the Vikings and Eagles have excellent offensive lines that have provided great pass protection.

 

 

What's annoying is that I hope like hell that the Eagles win the Super Bowl while knowing people are going to suddenly idiotically start talking about Foles as a Franchise QB.

 

Dude... he's a fringe starter at best who's riding the coat tails of all the players and coaches around him.

 

Really hope the Eagles win. Doesn't change what Foles is.

 

We want better in Buffalo and this is the offseason we finally do that rather than settling for retreads like Foles, Keenum, Smith or McCown!

 

Darnold/Mayfield/Rudolph or bust!!!  

I love how all of a sudden Pederson is an offensive genius and Dennison is a total failure at life. Dennison has had no success? Well, how about:

- the #2 ranked passing offense in 2008 (Denver/Cutler)

- the #3 ranked passing offense in 2010 (Houston/Schaub)

Pederson's best ranking passing offense ever? 24th (KC/2013).

I was no Dennison fan, and I think it was absolute idiocy to bring him in to try to force the player (Tyrod) to fit the scheme rather than the other way around. But it's not like he was some kind of complete failure as an offensive coordinator, or that Pederson (who somehow managed never to get the best out of Alex Smith) was a hidden genius. Talk about hindsight ...

[Hapless Bills Fan]

On 1/21/2018 at 8:00 PM, Real McCoy said:

Good question. I'm not sure what the Eagles will get but sure teams will be calling to trade for him. When Reid brought him to KC I thought FOles was going to take Ales Smiths place in all honesty. 

 

I think Reid wanted to have that possibility, and he decided Mahomes was better.  That has been Foles' fate: "You're good, kid, but we're going for better"

 

Until Wentz takes the field and is seen to have no lingering issues, I expect the Eagles to hold on to Foles.  He's only costing them $7M, no reason they can't.

If Wentz and the rookie QB they draft in the 3rd round look good and a team with a QB crisis picks up the phone and backs up the NFL Draft "Brinks truck" before or midway through the season,  they'll bite.

 

23 hours ago, Magox said:

It's easy to second guess things right now, Taylor looked to be the best option we had available to us.  Foles just came off of a bad year with the Rams, even though I attribute that to the Rams organization and coaching more than anything but none the less it was not a good year for him.  Taylor did lead us to the playoffs so I'm not going to cry about that but without doubt we could do much better than Tyrod and in retrospect Foles most likely would have been a slight upgrade.

 

Hindsight is always 20/20, but let's be sure we're talking about the same thing.  Was Taylor the best option available when he was signed by Rex? 

Or was Taylor the best option available when we renegotiated next year?

 

If we're talking about the latter, Foles McCown and Keenum were all available.  McCown is the guy we tried hard to get before he went to the Browns (fool!).  Foles may not have wanted to come here - he had a bad experience with OCs and HCs on the Rams and he may have wanted to go with the guy he knew and trusted in Pederson - or he might have been intrigued by the chance to start.  We didn't hear those names in connection with the Bills, but I'm sure we don't hear everything.

 

If you're looking for a traditional passing QB, I don't see how it can be argued that any of those 3 aren't a significant upgrade.  [When Rex took over, I think Roman was intrigued by not having a guy with Taylor's skill set, since he had gone to playoffs and SB with Smith/Kaep - and he did give us a top-10 offense]

Edited January 23, 2018 by Hapless Bills Fan