NFL Rumors: Nick Foles To Sign Four-Year Deal With Jacksonville Jaguars, Per NFL Network
Nick Foles, who took over from a then-injured Carson Wentz to lead the Philadelphia Eagles to their first-ever Super Bowl victory in February 2018, looks to be headed south to the Jacksonville Jaguars once the NFL’s new league year begins later this week.
According to a tweet from NFL Network insider Ian Rapoport, Foles will be signing with the Jaguars, a team that had long targeted the 30-year-old quarterback, for the 2019 NFL season. Rapoport then added in a series of Twitter posts that Foles will be signing a contract for four years and $88 million (per his NFL Network colleague Mike Garafolo) and effectively replacing Blake Bortles as the Jaguars’ starting quarterback. This, he stressed, would effectively end Bortles’ largely disappointing stint in Jacksonville since the Jags drafted him No. 3 overall in 2014.
“The #Jaguars are expected to release QB Blake Bortles when QB Nick Foles’ deal is official and signed, I’m told. Will be a few days. But Bortles will be free,” Rapoport continued in a third tweet.
A third-round pick out of the University of Arizona, Foles started out his NFL career with the Philadelphia Eagles in 2012 and made the Pro Bowl after a 2013 campaign where he threw 27 touchdown passes and only two interceptions, per Pro Football Reference. After playing just eight games in his third year in the league, Foles then played a season each for the then-St. Louis Rams and the Kansas City Chiefs before returning to the Eagles ahead of the 2017 NFL season.
However, it was only late in the 2017 regular season when Foles got a chance to play, as he stepped up as the team’s starter when Carson Wentz suffered a season-ending knee injury, as recalled by The Washington Post. With Foles behind center, the Eagles beat the New England Patriots, 41-33, at Super Bowl LII, though he would ultimately return to second-string duty when Wentz, the No. 2 overall pick in the 2016 NFL Draft, returned from his injury early in the 2018 season.
Foles then replaced Wentz a second time after the young quarterback went down with a fractured vertebra in his back, once again in the final weeks of the 2018 regular season. This time, however, the Eagles only made it to the divisional playoff round, where they lost to the New Orleans Saints, 20-14.
Breaking: Nick Foles is signing with the Jaguars, per @RapSheet pic.twitter.com/xOz11v9Jea
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) March 11, 2019
All in all, Nick Foles has career statistics of 68 touchdown passes, 33 interceptions, a 26-18 win-loss record as a starter, and a QB rating of 88.5 since entering the NFL. Per SB Nation, the Eagles declined to give Foles the franchise tag for the 2019 campaign, thus allowing him to officially enter free agency on Wednesday.
Rumors of Foles signing with the Jaguars had swirled even before the Eagles’ aforementioned decision not to franchise-tag him, mostly on account of Blake Bortles’ continued struggles in Jacksonville as their starting quarterback, as well as Foles’ status as one of the NFL’s best backup signal-callers. Bortles, who temporarily lost his starting job in 2018 to journeyman Cody Kessler, finished last season with 13 touchdown passes, 11 interceptions, and a QB rating of 79.8.
