Nick Foles retires: 10 stats that are hard to believe

Nick Foles retires: 10 stats that are hard to believe originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

Nick Foles was a .500 career quarterback who never threw 350 passes in a season, played for six different teams, won 10 regular-season games in his last seven NFL seasons and threw as many touchdowns in one game in 2013 as he threw in eight entire seasons.

The numbers make no sense. Foles definitely had one of the strangest careers in NFL history.

He played only 38 games in an Eagles uniform, but he’s a folk hero around here. A legend.

With Foles announcing Thursday that he’ll be retiring as an Eagle at the home opener against the Falcons next month, we figured we’d put together 10 of our favorite Foles stats.

Like his entire career, they’re simply impossible to believe.

1. Before his historic 2013 season and his miracle 2017 postseason, Foles started six games late in 2012, his rookie year and Andy Reid’s final season as Eagles head coach. Foles went 1-5 for a horrible team, but he completed 61 percent of his passes and threw for 243 yards per game. That made him the first quarterback in NFL history to complete 61 percent of his passes and throw for over 240 yards per game as a rookie (minimum 250 attempts).

2. In 2013, four years before the Super Bowl, Foles made his only Pro Bowl with a historic regular season despite starting only 10 games after Michael Vick got hurt. He led the NFL that year in passer rating, yards per completion, yards per attempt, highest touchdown percentage and lowest interception percentage.

His 119.2 passer rating from 2013 is 4^th-highest in NFL history (behind Aaron Rodgers in 2011 and 2020 and Peyton Manning in 2004), his 9.1 yards per attempt is 12^th-highest in history, his 14.2 yards per completion is 6^th-highest in the last 30 years, his touchdown percentage — one TD every 11.7 attempts — is 12^th-highest in NFL history and his interception percentage – one every 159 attempts – is 3^rd-best in NFL history.

His 27 touchdowns are 2^nd-most in history by a quarterback who threw just two or fewer interceptions. Tom Brady had 28 TD and two INTs in 2016.

3. The highlight of that 2013 season was Foles’ remarkable performance in the Eagles’ Week 9 win over the Raiders. He completed 22 of 28 passes for 406 yards with seven touchdowns and no interceptions and a perfect 158.3 passer rating.

To this day, he’s one of only eight quarterbacks to throw seven touchdowns in a game and one of just three to do it with no interceptions. The two others are Y.A. Tittle of the Giants vs. Washington in 1962 and Peyton Manning with the Broncos vs. the Ravens, also in 2013.

Foles is still the only quarterback to complete 70 percent of his passes in a game with seven TDs and no INTs. He’s the only QB to throw seven TDs in a game with fewer than seven incompletions. At 24 years, 287 days, he’s the youngest QB ever to throw seven touchdowns in a game.

4. After pit stops with the Rams and Chiefs, Foles returned to the Eagles in 2017 to back up Carson Wentz and replaced him late in the season when Wentz tore his ACL. All Foles did in the 2017 postseason was complete 73 percent of his passes with six touchdowns, one interception off Alshon Jeffery’s hands and a 115.7 passer rating.

His 115.7 passer rating is 3^rd-highest ever in a single postseason by a Super Bowl winner, behind Joe Flacco’s 117.2 in 2012 and Drew Brees’ 117.0 in 2009. Foles’ 72.6 completion percentage is 2^nd-highest ever in a postseason and highest by a Super Bowl winner. His 9.2 yards per attempt is 2^nd-highest in a single postseason and his 324 passing yards per game is 3^rd-highest by a Super Bowl winner (behind Brady in 2016 and Kurt Warner in 1999).

He’s one of 11 quarterbacks to post a passer rating of at least 100 in all three games he played in a single postseason.

5. In the second half of the Eagles’ three playoff wins in 2017, Foles threw just nine incomplete passes and completed 82 percent of his pass attempts. In wins over the Vikings, Falcons and Patriots, he was 38-for-47 for 447 yards, four TDs, no INTs and a 134.7 passer rating after halftime. That’s 12-for-15 for 145 yards vs. the Vikings, 11-for-11 for 144 yards with two TDs and no INTs vs. the Falcons and 15-for-21 for 158 yards with two TDs and no INTs vs. the Patriots.

Foles’ career postseason passer rating of 107.4 after halftime is the highest in NFL history by a quarterback throwing at least 100 passes. Warner is second at 105.4.

6. All Foles did in Super Bowl LII against Brady and the Patriots in Minneapolis was throw for 373 yards with three touchdown passes and a touchdown catch.

He’s the only player in NFL history – regular season or postseason – to throw for 350 yards and three touchdowns and catch a touchdown in the same game and one of only two QBs to throw for 350 yards and three TDs in a Super Bowl win. Tom Brady vs. the Panthers in 2003 is the other.

Foles’ TD catch from Trey Burton before halftime is the only 4th-down TD catch in Super Bowl history by a player on the winning team.

7. Including the wild-card loss to the Saints in 2013, Foles began his career with four straight postseason games with at least 30 attempts and a passer rating over 100. He remains the only quarterback in NFL history to open his career with a passer rating of at least 100 in his first four postseason starts (minimum of 20 attempts).

Only five other QBs have had four straight postseason games with a 100 passer rating at any point in their career (Joe Montana, Matt Ryan, Troy Aikman, Flacco, Brady).

8. Foles won four playoff games in his career — three in 2017 and the Double Doink wild-card win in Chicago in 2018. Only two quarterbacks drafted in the third round or later have won more postseason games (minimum 30 attempts): Montana and Brady. Brady won 27 and Montana 11.

9. Maybe the biggest throw of Foles’ career was his 4^th-down completion to Zach Ertz during the game-winning drive in the Super Bowl. The Patriots had just taken a 33-32 lead on Brady’s touchdown pass to Rob Gronkowski with 9:22 left, and with 5:39 left the Eagles faced a 4^th-and-2 on their own 45-yard-line. Foles, under extreme pressure from Patriots defensive tackle Malcolm Brown, lobbed the ball over traffic and Ertz went up to snag it just past the sticks for a two-yard gain and a fresh set of downs.

Foles’ TD pass to Ertz moments later gave the Eagles the lead for good. There have only been three 4^th-quarter 4^th-down completed passes in Super Bowl history by a team that was trailing, and Foles’ completion to Ertz is the only one that led to a win. One of the most clutch throws in Super Bowl history.

10. Bill Belichick coached 44 playoff games with the Patriots, and Foles was the only quarterback to throw for 370 yards with three touchdowns in a postseason game against Belichick’s Patriots. Only 10 quarterbacks reached those milestones against the Patriots in 387 regular-season games against Belichick.

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