Michael Vick vs Nick Foles, with a dash of Matt Barkley tossed in. Who will win? Who is winning? Honestly, only the coaches have any idea. The media has watched a total of 2 practices. You can make a judgment based on that, but the sample size is too small for conclusions.
Bob Grotz thinks it is clear that Nick Foles is ahead in one way.
“There was no argument, however, over which quarterback was most effective running Kelly’s hurry-up offense. It was Foles by a landslide.”
This would make sense. Foles played in a hurry-up system in Arizona. He should have a better feel for some of the things that Chip Kelly wants to do and the pace that Kelly wants to play at.
Jeff McLane points out that Vick has a couple of key things on his side – mobility and experience. Foles did run some zone read stuff at practice the other day and apparently is making some progress. Foles knows that isn’t his strength, but he understands the value it can have for an offense.
“As a quarterback you’ve just got to be able to get a couple of 5-, 10-yard runs a game,” Foles said. “It puts the defense on their heels because they really have to watch out for you because they don’t want to give up a big run to the quarterback, that I’ll tell you.”
Can Foles become a functional runner? Can Vick hold onto the ball and make quick reads? The competition is wide open. Either player can win this. It won’t be decided in May or June or even July. Someone can take the lead, but Chip Kelly is going to let the players battle this thing out. He wants to make a smart decision, not a quick decision.
As for Barkley, he seems like a longshot to win the job, but you just never know. You would love for him to play his way into the competition. The depressing scenario would be if Foles and Vick played their way down to Barkley’s level.
As McLane pointed out, this is the first real QB battle for the Eagles since the days of Rodney Peete and Ty Detmer (1996-1997). It will be interesting to see how fans and the media handle this, as well as obviously the players.
I’d love to tell you this will be fun. But why lie?
Kelly’s offense will be more like New England than Oregon. If Vick can’t be quick, then Foles will start. Does it matter what Tom Brady’s 40 time is? Nice to have the Vick run threat, but that is clearly a secondary consideration.
Good article on what we can expect with our play call teminology and passing concepts(like New England’s, only with the hand-signals):
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8849439/how-terminology-erhardt-perkins-system-helped-maintain-dominance-tom-brady-patriots
Much of it depends on how Foles and Vick progress (so it could be a two pony race) but I’m still not 100% convinced there is a depth chart yet based on them both getting most time with the 1’s and 2’s. I still feel Chip is evaluating both of them and especially Vick.
I’m not sure this is the right time to count Barkley out though and I realize you aren’t, I’m just reiterating it. It’s very early and they haven’t even gotten been in pads yet and none of the rookies seem to be up to speed yet. Just not sure we know what is going on in Chip’s head and his process.
I also heard talk Vick didn’t look good. That was just from reporters tweeting, sadly I don’t have anything to back that up for sure. Did you hear any about how Vick was doing? But then it was said he never looks particularly good in practice so how does that figure in to a new coach especially Kelly’s thinking? If it’s an open competition and Vick doesn’t do well and Barkley does , is Kelly going to wait until preseason to see Vick in games? Does that mean Barkley doesn’t get relatively many reps at all in rest of OTAs , training camp?