Nick Foles about to do what no Super Bowl-winning QB has

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We’ve spent a good portion of the last month and a half talking about what a remarkable quarterback Nick Foles was in the postseason. Let’s go a different route for a change and talk about Nick Foles the person.

Because none of this would work if he weren’t just as remarkable a person as he is a quarterback.

Foles is about to do something nobody has ever done. Win a Super Bowl in his prime and head right back to the bench for the same team the next year.

Other backups have won Super Bowls. You know their names.

But guys like Jim Plunkett and Doug Williams were in their mid-30s when they did it and both began the next year — the next years in Plunkett’s case — as the starter. Kurt Warner and Tom Brady won Super Bowls as backups and never gave up the job. Jeff Hostetler started the Giants’ first 12 games the year after he won his Super Bowl. Trent Dilfer left Baltimore to become the starter for Seattle after winning his Super Bowl.

Foles? He fashioned one of the most remarkable postseason performances ever, won the Super Bowl MVP, delivered the first Lombardi Trophy to Philadelphia, and it now looks likely he’ll be riding the bench when the 2018 season begins.

The combination of Carson Wentz’s rapid recovery — Doug Pederson said he’s ahead of schedule (see story) — and the Eagles’ decision to keep Foles this offseason means the Super Bowl MVP, the guy who rallied the Eagles in the final minutes to a come-from-behind win against the greatest coach in NFL history to their first championship in 57 years, begins 2018 the same way Mike McMahon began 2005, the same way Vince Young began 2011, the same way Chase Daniel began 2016.

I don’t know what’s more impressive. Foles’ performance in the postseason — all the touchdowns and fourth-down conversions and big plays — or his literally unprecedented willingness to set aside personal goals and do what’s best for the team. And in this case, that’s backing up Wentz.

How do you go from engineering an astonishing Super Bowl comeback with 100 million people watching and standing in the middle of U.S. Bank Stadium holding the Lombardi Trophy high above you and being handed the Super Bowl MVP trophy by the commissioner the next morning to throwing passes to scout team receivers Shelton Gibson, Rashard Davis and Bryce Treggs on a side field at training camp five months later?

You do it if you’re Nick Foles.

You do it if you are so obsessively unselfish and unconcerned with personal glory and focused only on team success that you’d be just as happy if Wentz or Nate Sudfeld had won that Super Bowl as you were when you won it.

No trade demands. No threats. No holdouts. No ultimatums. Not from Nick Foles.

Just … gimme the clipboard and let’s get to work.

There isn’t a team in the NFL that has a better quarterback situation than the Eagles. An MVP starting, a Super Bowl MVP backing him up and an impressive prospect as the No. 3.

We saw last year just how special the Eagles are, and we’re learning every day just exactly why.

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