Super Bowl Breakdown: The Quarterbacks

By: Jesse Larch, Sports Talk Philly editor 

Leading up to the Eagles matchup in Super Bowl LII against the New England Patriots Sports Talk Philly and Eagledelphia will compare the personnel of the two teams each day until gameday is here. 

In this edition of our week-long comparison we will look at the quarterbacks. 

New England QBs | Tom Brady and Brian Hoyer

Whether you are discussing the history of the game or just present day, it just does not get better than Tom Brady. 

In his age-40 season Brady has put together another MVP-caliber season, throwing for 4,557 yards, 32 touchdowns, and eight interceptions. Brady completed 66.3 percent of his passes in 2017. An MVP award this season would be the third of Brady's career. 

Brady has led the Patriots to their eighth Super Bowl during his tenure as the team's quarterback. Brady is the only player in NFL history to win five Super Bowls while playing for one team. Brady is the standard bearer at the position, and for good reason.

Brady is backed up by Brian Hoyer, who spent the early portion of this season starting for the San Francisco 49ers. 

Hoyer ended up losing the job in San Francisco to rookie third-round pick C.J. Beathard, and after being cut he re-joined the team that helped build up his career. 

Hoyer has started 39 games in his nine-year NFL career. He has completed 59.4 percent of his passes and has an 83.3 passer rating for his career. While he is nothing more than a backup quarterback, he does bring a wealth of knowledge and experience, along with his familiarity of the Patriots' offense. 

Philadelphia QBs | Nick Foles and Nate Sudfeld

In Nick Foles's seven appearances and three starts during the regular season he has managed to post his lowest career QBR at 31.4. Foles has been a good spot starter throughout his career but has given Eagles' fan cause for concern by throwing for just 202 yards, one touchdown, and tw0 interceptions over his last five quarters played int he regular season against cellar-dwelling defenses in the Oakland Raiders and the Dallas Cowboys.

The Eagles' staff and players continue to reiterate that they have faith in Foles to prevail in the playoffs, but there is an undeniable and vast dropoff between the quality of play that the Eagles were receiving from Carson Wentz and the play that they are receiving from Nick Foles. 

Although the dropoff is obvious, Foles did show encouraging signs in the divisional round when he completed 23 of 30 pass attempts for 246 yards and zero interceptions against an Atlanta defense that had been lights out coming into the game. Foles managed to keep the Eagles in the game, and once again proved that the Eagles can win games with Foles under center. 

Foles followed up his Divisional round performance with the best passing game of any Eagles' quarterback this season against the Minnesota Vikings' top-ranked defense. Foles completed 78.8 percent of his passes, and threw for 352 yards and three touchdowns. 

While Foles played poorly in the regular season, he has entered himself into the discussion of greatest postseason quarterbacks. No quarterback (minimum of 90 attempts) has a higher completion percentage (75.0 percent) or passer rating (116.3) than Foles does in the postseason. 

Nate Sudfeld showed potential in his debut in week 17 against the Cowboys, but he is still overwhelmingly inexperienced to enter a playoff game if anything were to keep Nick Foles from playing. Sudfeld has just three quarters of playing time in his two-year career. 

Edge

No matter how good Nick Foles has been in the postseason, and he has been downright elite, he – or any quarterback – will ever get the edge over Tom Brady. 

Brady is referred to as the GOAT, because, well, he is. Brady has solidified his legacy as the greatest quarterback of all time and any accolades he adds at this point in his career are just to further build his legend. 

Brady is the pinnacle of quarterbacking in the NFL, and Nick Foles can only try to scale enough of that mountain to bring the Eagles their first Super Bowl in franchise history.