The Philadelphia Eagles lost one of the legends in team history this year. No, not Jason Kelce, although his exit stung the city. Rather, the Eagles lost their ability to sign Nick Foles for what would be a third stint with his third Eagles head coach. Foles retired from the league this week.
Despite working as a backup for the majority of his career and for a multitude of teams, Foles retired as a member of the Eagles.
Foles granted Philadelphia the honor, so would it be outside the realm of possibility for the team to do one better? Technically, no, as the team has the freedom to retire any jersey number they want. However, retiring a number is not something a team does lightly. Pro Football Network’s Nick Faria examined the idea in an August 8 article, arguing that Foles should have his number retired.
According to Pro Football Reference, the Eagles have nine retired numbers and Foles would be the 10th. His No. 9 would be just the second retired number in the 0-10 category.
Eagles need to retire Nick Foles’ jersey number
The most obvious reason why the Eagles deserve to retire the number nine jersey is what he did in 2017.
At the start of December 2017, few were aptly aware that Foles was even on the team. However, by the end of January, everyone in the league knew it. Carson Wentz had done most of the heavy-lifting to get the Eagles the No. 1 seed for the playoffs. However, when he went down due to a season-ending injury, Foles took over.
Almost everyone wrote off the Eagles, despite owning the top seed in the NFC. However, Foles led the team through the playoffs and vanquished the most experienced Super Bowl opponent in NFL history: Tom Brady. Foles didn’t win the game because of his defense and other players, either. Foles helped the offense put up 41 points, throwing for three touchdowns and one interception in the game.
Beyond that, he also owned the record at one point for the best touchdown-to-interception ratio in a season in NFL history. Years before Super Bowl 52, Foles threw for 27 touchdowns and just two interceptions while he was with the Eagles under Andy Reid. Since then, only Brady has beaten that ratio by throwing for 28 touchdowns and two interceptions.
Based on those two stats alone, Nick Foles has done more than enough to see his jersey retired. Sure, he only played for the franchise for five total seasons. However, in two of those years, he crafted a legend and one of the key stories in team history.
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