The prism through which Eagles fans and quarterback evaluators, amateur or otherwise, viewed Nick Foles' performance in Sunday's 27-20 loss to the Washington Redskins changed Monday when head coach Andy Reid announced that Foles had actually been playing through a broken throwing hand throughout the second half.
Initially, the Eagles only knew that Foles had suffered a contusion on his right hand that was bothering the rookie quarterback – though, not enough for Foles to remove himself from the game. Following an MRI, it was revealed that Foles' hand had in fact been broken at some point during the first half. Reid called the injury "a slight hairline fracture" on the second metatarsal.
"Nick will obviously not play" this week, Reid said. "This was something that showed up on the MRI this morning, it wasn't present on the X-ray."
On the day, Foles completed 32 of 48 passes for 345 yards, one touchdown and one interception for an 85.9 quarterback rating. Needing a touchdown to tie the game, Foles drove the offense all the way down to the Redskins' 5-yard-line before committing an intentional grounding penalty that ended the game. On that final drive, Foles had a chance to tie the game on a pass to Jeremy Maclin that would have converted a 17-yard touchdown. But the ball fell about a yard short of Maclin in the end zone, leaving the Eagles without the necessary points.
Following the game, Foles made no excuses for his mistakes and shot down any references to his hurting hand.
"Not at all," he said. "It didn't affect my throwing at all."
If Foles doesn't take another snap for the Eagles this season, the team will have had six starts and seven regular season games to evaluate whether to move forward with the Arizona product as their No. 1 quarterback heading into 2013. During that time, Foles completed 60.8 percent of his passes for an average of 6.4 yards per pass attempt. He threw six touchdowns to five interceptions and compiled a 79.1 quarterback rating.
With Foles out, Reid said it's likely that Michael Vick will return as the starting quarterback. Vick has not played since suffering a concussion against the Dallas Cowboys back in Week 10. He returned to practice just about a week ago.
"There's a pretty good chance Michael will be the starter," Reid said. "That's what we're looking at right now. That's the direction I'm going as we speak right now."
Reid said that he spoke with Vick this morning, saying that Vick will be "ready to go."
"This past week I thought he threw it around well," Reid added.
Elsewhere on the injury front, defensive tackle Fletcher Cox and linebacker Mychal Kendricks both suffered concussions.
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