True to form, Eagles head coach Chip Kelly refused to name a starting quarterback for the rest of the season Monday.
It was a simple enough question posed to Chip Kelly after his quarterback rounded out the last two games tossing ten touchdowns and his team notched two hard fought road victories.
"What exactly, if anything, are you waiting to see before committing to Nick [Foles] as the starting quarterback the rest of the season?" A reporter asked Kelly at the Novacare Complex Monday during the coach's weekly day-after press conference.
His response stayed true to form of what we've seen from the first-year head coach for the better part of the past month since Michael Vick, the incumbent starter, pulled his left hamstring on October 6th.
"I think what we've done for the last two weeks [not naming a starter on Monday] has worked for us pretty good," Kelly quipped. So we're going to stick with that formula. It's got us 16 touchdowns, no interceptions and two wins, so why would we change?"
Asked to clarify his remarks, Kelly stood by his approach of basing his decision on who's starting each week on the health of his quarterbacks.
"My approach in terms of how we're doing things. Who's up, who's available?" Kelly said. "I've made this point before. I've had guys go down on Friday. So why does it really matter who I say is the starter for the next Sunday's game?"
This philosophy flies in the face of Kelly's handling of the situation in the preseason when he named Vick the starting quarterback with the assurance that he would not need to worry about job security.
"This is a one-QB operation," Kelly said in August. "I don't want Michael looking over his shoulder."
Foles' 16 touchdown, zero interception performance while posting a 132.5 passer rating and 3-1 record as a starter as well as winning the Giants game in relief of Vick on October 6th should, and likely will, merit the second-year signal caller getting the ball for the team's final six games.
However, it is entirely possible that Kelly hopes to continue to at least have the seed of a competition planted in both Foles' and Vick's minds because of the almost instantaneous decline in Vick's production after he was named the starting quarterback prior to the team's third preseason game. Kelly, possibly learning from his summer decisions is-in his mind-doing what is best to have his quarterback mentally and physically sharp for the stretch run.
As simple as the repetitive quarterback line of questions have been for Kelly, it seems the answer is and will remain complicated for the foreseeable future.
Matt Lombardo is the Editor-In-Chief of Eagledelphia and also an on-air personality on 97.5 FM The Fanatic in Philadelphia. Join the conversation and follow Matt on Twitter.
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