No Love For Foles In Rankings


National love has been hard to come by for Nick Foles of late.

Mike Sando of ESPN.com polled a group of 26 insiders — including eight general managers and a pair of head coaches — to grade each projected starting quarterback on a 1-5 scale and break the quarterbacks into tiers. Foles received an average grade of 2.56 and fell into Tier 2.

Foles just made the bottom of the second tier, even though three evaluators put him in the fourth tier, including one GM who called him “a four who played like a two” last season.

Another GM boldly placed Foles in the first tier based on what he saw last season. He kept Foles there upon additional reflection, but his was an outlying view.

Most wanted to see more. We’ve seen Matt Cassel and other QBs flash for a season or two before fading away. Still, the evaluators most familiar with Foles liked his future. When asked about the Cassel comparison, they thought Foles had a much better arm. But others wondered if part of one season wasn’t enough to go on. “Foles could be like a Kerry Collins or Jake Delhomme, a three who plays like a two or four,” one evaluator said.

Foles came in as the 15th ranked quarterback overall. The 14 in front of him?

T1) Tom Brady
T1) Peyton Manning
T1) Aaron Rodgers 
T1) Drew Brees
5) Andrew Luck
6) Philip Rivers
7) Ben Roethlisberger
T8) Tony Romo
T8) Matt Ryan
T8) Russell Wilson
T8) Eli Manning
12) Joe Flacco
13) Matthew Stafford
14) Colin Kaepernick 

Pete Prisco of CBS Sports recently named Foles the most overrated player on the Eagles. It comes as no surprise, then, that he left the QB off his recently-released list of the top 100 players in the NFL. The quarterbacks he put in his 100 include Manning, Rodgers, Brady, Brees, Roethlisberger, Ryan, Rivers, Luck, Cam Newton, Romo, Wilson and Kaepernick.

Eagles that did make the list were: LeSean McCoy (ninth), Jason Peters (38th) and Evan Mathis (48). Jason Kelce made it into the “Just Missed” category. Foles’ name didn’t appear there either.

Lists have little value (other than creating some entertaining national writer-local writer beefs), but some fodder anyway as we count down to training camp.