This week, I have to deviate slightly from my typical posts to write about the most significant event of the year and probably the decade. The Philadelphia Eagles have defied all odds (and I mean every single set of betting odds) to win the Super Bowl.
Starting with last year, the Eagles finished a lackluster 7-9, placing them at the bottom of the NFC East. If you had said in the beginning of the year that the Eagles would win a Superbowl, I would have called you crazy. If you had said they would win a Superbowl, despite losing their MVP candidate quarterback and future Hall of Fame left Tackle Jason Peters, I would have laughed. How did the Eagles overcome the fact that they were a mediocre football team last year and lost two of their best players this year? I am still not completely sure, but I can offer an idea.
Nick Foles. Nick Foles showed sparks of talent when he played for the Eagles in 2012 to 2014, but the Eagles did not see a long term fit with Foles and ended up trading him for another quarterback, Sam Bradford. Nick Foles started 11 games for Saint Louis in 2015 before starting just 1 game for Kansas in 2016. In 2017, Nick Foles signed a two year contract, returning to the Eagles to back up Carson Wentz. Foles started off slow, with a completion percentage of just 56.4% and a passer rating of 79.5, below the average of 88.6. But Nick Foles was just getting started. In the conference championship against the Minnesota Vikings, Foles completed 26 of 33 passes for 352 yards for three touchdowns and a 141.4 passer rating, the highest ever in a conference championship game. And this was against one of the best defenses in the league. Foles followed this performance up by going head to head against potentially the best quarterback of all time, passing for 373 yards and three touchdowns, even adding a receiving touchdown to lead the eagles to victory. Below, see a quarterback who considered quitting the league before the season, calling a trick play on fourth down in the Superbowl.
.@NFoles_9 made the call, made the touchdown and made history. #PhillySpecial
Watch more @NFLFilms highlights on the #InsideTheNFL finale TONIGHT 9PM ET/PT on Showtime.@Eagles #SBLII #FlyEaglesFly #Eagles pic.twitter.com/jIDrfeYpVW
— Inside the NFL (@insidetheNFL) February 6, 2018
In total, Nick Foles had the highest postseason completion percentage of all time and the third highest postseason passer rating.
Above is a graph of the odds of winning the Superbowl by week. The Eagles started the season with 50-1 odds of winning, meaning that if you bet one dollar on the Eagles winning, you would have won fifty dollars. Even once they made it to the divisional round, they were given the sixth best odds to win out of the eight teams left. The Eagles were underdogs in all three playoff games.
Go Birds