As Foles retires, former Eagles teammates share memories of the Philly legend

As Foles retires, former Eagles teammates share memories of the Philly legend originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

Brandon Graham didn’t have to think long about his favorite Nick Foles memory.

It came in 2017, when Foles returned to the Eagles after a few years away and after a rocky second chapter of his NFL career. Foles told Graham about how he contemplated retirement prior to the 2016 season before ultimately deciding to sign with Andy Reid in Kanas City, a move that rejuvenated his career.

The next offseason, the Eagles were looking for a backup quarterback and gave Foles a call.

You know how the rest of the story goes.

“If he would have retired,” Graham said, “then who knows what would have happened. We’re probably not even talking about Super Bowl.”

There’s some other timeline in an alternate reality where Foles retires before 2016. He never comes back to Philly. He never becomes the folk hero who stepped in for Carson Wentz to deliver a Lombardi Trophy. Graham never becomes a hero himself for his strip sack on Tom Brady. Heck, there’s no Philly Special!

In that other world, the Eagles are still yearning for that elusive first Super Bowl championship.

“I’m happy that he didn’t (retire),” Graham said.

So is the rest of Philadelphia. Finally on Monday night, years after he first contemplated it, Foles will officially retire from the NFL. He’ll do it as a member of the Eagles and will be honored in front of a sellout crowd at the Linc.

As everyone gets ready to honor Foles on Monday night, we caught up with the dwindling list of current Eagles who were his teammates in Philadelphia. There are just eight players and one position coach left: Brandon Graham, Lane Johnson, Jordan Mailata, Dallas Goedert, Jake Elliott, Rick Lovato, Avonte Maddox, Josh Sweat and OL coach Jeff Stoutland.

DE Brandon Graham

Graham is the longest-tenured Eagles player and the only guy on the current team who was in Philly when Foles was drafted in the third round in 2012.

The thing he remembers most about rookie Nick Foles?

“Well, he had hair,” Graham said.

Graham also remembers Foles’ ability on the basketball court. He said Foles was smooth on the hardwood.

As Graham’s career winds down, he’s been able to be more reflective this season. He knows he’ll always be tied to Foles and the rest of the 2017 Super Bowl champs.

“Somebody that I’ll always remember because he got us that (Super) Bowl, man,” Graham said. “He came up big in a moment where he wasn’t even the guy for the year. That’s you making sure you’re staying ready for your moment and he stayed ready for his moment. The coaches adjusted to what we had, we adjusted to what the game plan was and we executed. I’ll always be indebted to him for that.”

OT Lane Johnson 

When Lane Johnson was drafted in the first round in 2013, he became teammates with Foles for the first time. But he still remembers watching Foles lead Westlake against Southlake Carroll in the 2006 Class 5A Division II high school title game in Texas.

Johnson always admired Foles as a football player but then he got to know Foles as a person.

“Football was a big part of his life but it wasn’t his identity, which a lot of people can’t say that,” Johnson said. “I felt like he kept it light for us. He was just a good teammate. He would always go out of his way to talk to you and just be a good guy.”

Over the course of their time together, Johnson spent a lot of time blocking for Foles but what stands out most to Johnson about his former teammate didn’t happen on the field.

It was Foles’ influence in the NovaCare Complex that Johnson remembers most.

“He was really adamant about Bulletproof Coffee,” Johnson said. “He tried to get everybody in this motherf—er to drink some Bulletproof Coffee. That’s what I remember about Nick. He was a big Dave Asprey, Bulletproof Coffee man.”

Did he get Johnson?

“Hell yeah, he got me,” Johnson said. “I still drink Bulletproof Coffee to this day. So thank you, Nick.”

OL coach Jeff Stoutland

Legendary offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland arrives at the NovaCare Complex every morning at 5:30 and as he enters the building, he passes a large image of Foles hoisting the Lombardi Trophy.

“I sometimes stop, I take my phone and I take a picture of that,” Stoutland said. “And I send it to Nick Foles and I say, ‘I love you.’ And he loves that.”

Stoutland is unsure how to find an old photo in his phone so every time he decides to text one to Foles, he takes a new shot. He probably has a bunch of the same photo clogging up his storage but at least it’s a cool image.

Foles is revered by Eagles fans but his coaches have a ton of respect for him too. Stoutland on Saturday was asked why he thinks Foles had so much success in Philly but not at his other stops.

“I think that, for whatever reason, Nick was meant to be here,” Stoutland said. “You could feel it when he was in the game. Like, you felt him. When he went in, you could feel him. Like, ‘We’re going to be all right. Nick’s in the game.’”

TE Dallas Goedert

The Eagles traded out of the first round in 2018 so their top pick ended up being Dallas Goedert in the second round. He was the top pick on a team that was coming off a Super Bowl win. After Wentz got hurt again in 2018, it was Foles who took over.

And the Super Bowl MVP put him at ease.

“Anytime I was in the huddle with Nick, he would just say, basically, I’m going to give you guys shots to make plays and I expect you to make plays,” Goedert said. “So I feel like he just did a good job instilling confidence with everybody in the huddle. That’s what he did. I feel like that’s when Alshon Jeffery was playing his best. He didn’t need to create a lot of separation but he could go up and get the ball all the time.

“It was just that he had trust, he would tell us he had trust before he even gave the play call. I feel like that just instilled confidence in me to be able to go out there and make a play.”

Goedert was a second-round pick but he wasn’t the top tight end as a rookie. The Eagles still had Zach Ertz, who was a Super Bowl hero himself.

As Goedert found his way in the NFL, Foles was one of the encouraging voices in his ear.

“It was really important. It was really cool,” Goedert said. “I think I played with him six games or something like that, he threw me my first playoff touchdown so that was really cool. I got to experience that with him. But just the confidence that he put in me was really big as a rookie.”

OT Jordan Mailata

While Foles helped instill confidence in Goedert, at least the second-round pick had played football before. Back in 2018, Jordan Mailata was still new to the game and he was getting beaten quite frequently on the scout team.

Foles was always there to encourage him. That’s what Mailata remembers most.

“He was very supportive,” Mailata said. “Every time I’d mess up or I gave up a sack or messed up a run block, he was always there to pick me up. He was always encouraging. He would always say, ‘It’s going to come, it’s going to come. You just gotta keep on going every day.’ He would just give me nuggets every day.

“It went a long way because I was a young boy who didn’t know anything. As much as our vets help us, the vets weren’t out there with me on scout team when Foles was. Foles was very supportive.”

Back then, it seemed like a long shot that Mailata would ever really work out. But a couple years later he got some starts at left tackle and now in Year 7, Mailata is one of the better left tackles in the NFL.

“I think him being encouraging helped a lot with my mindset,” Mailata said. “If Nick is telling you it’s OK, then just play the next play. I kept doing that every day.”

K Jake Elliott

If you remember, Jake Elliott wasn’t even on the Eagles’ roster to start in 2017. But after a Caleb Sturgis injury, the Eagles signed Elliott off the Bengals’ practice squad and Elliott has turned into one of the best kickers in the NFL.

The specialists’ lockers are right next to the quarterbacks in the Eagles’ locker room.

“I just remember him sitting right here and just having an honest, good time in the locker room,” Elliott said. “He was a guy you could always go to and rely on him for life advice and just having a good time and being a good person. Most of the memories for me came right here.”

The night before Elliott spoke about Foles, he actually saw the clip of that Foles pass that bounced off Keanu Neal’s knee and into Torrey Smith’s hands in the 2017 playoffs. That was a fun memory.

But Elliott mostly remembers his chats with Foles in the locker room and the advice he’d get from him about staying even keel.

“He has obviously gone through a lot of ups and downs throughout his career,” Elliott said, ‘so just no matter what has happened, just weather the storm and stay even keel and just keep pushing.”

LS Rick Lovato

Rick Lovato remembers a couple of weeks before the Super Bowl, when the Eagles practiced the Philly Special and Foles dropped the pass.

“Oh my gosh, I don’t know if this is going to work,” Lovato thought to himself.

Spoiler Alert: It did.

But just like Elliott, Lovato’s favorite memories of Foles have nothing to do with football. Lovato became close friends with Foles and their wives are still close to this day. Lovato remembers going to the Foles’ house for barbecues and pizza nights.

At the time, Lovato was still just in his second year in the NFL and a friendship like the one he shared with Foles went a long way.

“Having Nick come back onto the roster, it was just so easy to talk to him about anything,” Lovato said. “I was a young player just trying to get a feel of everything around me. But he made that very, very easy. That’s a part of the reason we won the Super Bowl. We had so many veteran guys who made sure this team came together in every aspect, no matter how young or old you were.”

DB Avonte Maddox

Avonte Maddox was a fourth-round pick in 2018 just as the Eagles were coming off the Super Bowl win. He was on the defensive side of the ball, which meant he was across the line of scrimmage from Foles and also across the locker room from him.

“He’s a great person. Nick was funny. We always talked,” Maddox said. “He was over there (points to where his locker was), so that was a plus. He used to talk to me all the time. Other than that, I just know that out there on the field, he used to always throw the no-look pass. That was pretty cool. He’d do that and he’d laugh and say, ‘We got you.’ So it was definitely cool.”

DE Josh Sweat

Like Maddox, Josh Sweat was a fourth-round pick in 2018. Because he was just trying to survive as a rookie, Sweat didn’t get to know Foles all that well.

“It was different for me because my mind was just always in a different place,” Sweat said. “I knew who he was and I knew what he had done, so I knew he was big-time but I never got to feel that, ‘Oh this is Nick Foles’ because I was trying to survive on my own.”

While Sweat didn’t get to know Foles as well as some of his other teammates. But he did face him in practice.

“I did play against him on scout team,” Sweat said, “but obviously I can’t sack him or anything.”

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