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- Mar 19, 2019
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Nick Foles will start his first game as a Bear on Sunday against the Colts, who are coached by Frank Reich. The two of them have a long history together.
Reich was the Eagles’ offensive coordinator when Foles won the Super Bowl LII MVP for the Eagles, and Foles says it was Reich more than anyone else who shaped the Eagles’ offense around Foles’ strengths when Carson Wentz got hurt and Foles had to take over that season.
“He was the one who really figured me out as a player and realized that we had it all wrong,” Foles said, via the Chicago Tribune. “They just threw some plays out there one day and said: ‘Just go play these plays. We studied you and these are the plays you do.’ And sure enough, something triggered inside of me.
“And he figured me out as a player to where, even during games when I’d come to the sidelines, usually coaches want to coach you up and all this, and he’d go, ‘Just keep doing it, just keep doing it.’ Like, he wouldn’t say much. At first it was sort of weird because you’re not used to a coach doing that. He was like: ‘I trust you. Just go do your thing.’ No matter what, if I threw an interception or I threw a touchdown, he cared more about the person than the player. And that says a lot about him and that’s why I have all the respect in the world.”
Reich still thinks highly of Foles.
“Really composed, unflappable under pressure,” Reich said of Foles. “Nick is a really unique player in that regard. A lot of quarterbacks in the NFL have that composure. I just think Nick’s is maybe at another level. Part of that is he’s fearless. He’s a fearless competitor. That’s where a lot of it comes from. He’s not tied up mentally or emotionally with failure. He deals with it in his unique way, and that makes him a better player.”
Given the success that both Reich and Foles are having now, Eagles fans may wish they could still have the two of them together in Philadelphia.