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Jerry Angelo, formerly the Chicago Bears' general manager from 2001 to 2012, now does some NFL writing for The Sideline View. In his most recent piece, Angelo ranked every quarterback from the 2013 season. His rankings include a system of 8 tiers, and each NFL QB is given a grade from as low as 5.0 to as high as 9.0. Let's see where Angelo ranked Nick Foles among the NFL's best signal callers.
Tier 2: 8.4-8.0 - Played at a high level. Was one of the reasons – but not the reason – for his team’s success... not elite.
8.0 - Nick Foles - Put up top numbers and achieved the best QB rating in football. Once they made the change to him, they won. He knows how to protect the ball and get them in the end zone. Oakland got a dose of how good he is doing it.
Other quarterbacks in that tier include Ben Roethlisberger, Russell Wilson, Colin Kaepernick, and Alex Smith. Roethlisberger is the only QB in that group who wasn't the QB on a playoff team in 2013. Foles was also ranked behind the following players in Tier 1: Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Cam Newton, Drew Brees, Philip Rivers, and Andrew Luck. Out of the 12 QBs whose teams that made the 2013 NFL playoffs, Foles was ranked second to last. Only the much-maligned Andy Dalton, who starts for the Cincinnati Bengals, finished worse.
It's interesting to see Foles ranked so low given the context of this exercise. Players ranked above him have more experience and a higher NFL pedigree, but these rankings were supposedly based on 2013 performance only. There's no question that Foles had one of the best QB performances of the season given his 27:2 TD-INT ratio and a league leading QB rating. Angelo didn't say anything negative about Foles; he just didn't give him the highest sense of endorsement. He doesn't see Foles as an elite player.
Elsewhere on the Eagles roster, Michael Vick was ranked in the second to last tier. Sadly, Matt Barkley was nowhere to be ranked.
Tier 7: 5.9-5.5 - Can be an emergency starter. Does not have the mental make up or physical talent too perform as a consistent starter. He’s temporary relief, but not a long term solution.
5.9 - Michael Vick
A look at how other NFC East quarterbacks finished: 14) Tony Romo (7.8), 20) Eli Manning (7.0), and 21) Robert Griffin III (6.9).
Where does Foles rank in your book?
