Everything But a Bounce-back Game for Nick Foles

OK, this didn't help.

If you were already worried about Nick Foles after the Raiders game, now you're twice as worried. 

If you weren't? Now you are.

Because this was not the bounce-back game Foles hoped for after a terrible performance against the Raiders.

As bad as Foles was last week against the Raiders, this was worse (see Roob's observations).

"As an offense, we expect to execute better," Foles said after the Eagles' first home shutout in 12 years. "This wasn't acceptable, but we also know what we're capable of and how talented we can be because of how we play together.

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"So we're just going to keep working on that. Keep our confidence high. There's no reason not to be confident."

Foles, who replaced injured Carson Wentz a month ago, played four series before giving way to Nate Sudfeld Sunday in game that had no bearing on the NFC playoff bracket. 

The Eagles, with No. 1 seed locked up, lost 6-0 to the Cowboys in the lowest-scoring game in franchise history.

In four series, Foles was 4-for-11 for 39 yards with one inexplicable interception.

Since throwing four touchdowns against the Giants, he's 23-for-49 for 202 yards with one TD and two INTs against the Raiders and Cowboys.

His passer rating of 9.3 Sunday was lowest by an Eagles quarterback throwing 10 or more passes since Donovan McNabb had a 0.4 rating against the Dolphins in 2007. It's the fourth-lowest in the last 40 years.

"Am I concerned? I'm not concerned," head coach Doug Pederson said. "I've still got a lot confidence in our offense. Again, it's not one person or one guy. There is enough to go around.

"It's tough in this situation where you know you're kind of maybe only going to get a quarter, maybe a couple series, and you're coming out. But I've still got a lot of confidence in the guys."

Foles hasn't completed a pass longer than 32 yards in four games since replacing Wentz. Since throwing a TD pass to Jay Ajayi early in the Oakland game, Foles has engineered 16 straight drives generating no touchdowns and just six points.

Foles, who has a history of both very good and very bad games, said his confidence is fine going into the Eagles' playoff opener in two weeks.

"I've played a lot of football," he said. "I know who I am as a player and I also know that throughout my career and my life, I haven't always played great games. I've been in games where execution hasn't gone like we wanted it to. And the key is you remain confident because you know who you are. You know that you're going to prepare every day to do everything to the best of your ability.

"It's not like we go out there and say, β€˜Hey we're not going to play to the best of our ability today.' We went out there and played as hard as we could. We didn't execute, but that's stuff that we can fix because I know every single guy in that offensive huddle and on this team gives everything they have.

"So that's (why) I'm confident. Because I'm confident in myself and I'm confident in my teammates because I know what we're capable of doing and that's great things."

The Eagles did start out OK. 

Foles hit Alshon Jeffery for eight yards and Zach Ertz for 15 yards into Dallas territory. But Torrey Smith dropped a 3rd-and-7 that would have been a big play, and a 4th-down pass fell incomplete.

They only netted six yards on the last three drives with Foles in the game.

"We started off fine today," Smith said. "I dropped a ball, and honestly, if I caught it I probably would have housed it. That messed our momentum up and then we only played a short time after that and we kept getting penalties and shooting ourselves in the foot.

"I'm confident that if we stayed in the game we would have gotten it back on track, but we have two weeks of practice and I'm very confident we'll be ready to roll."

This is the first time in his career Foles has had a passer rating below 60 in consecutive games.

In fact, he's the first Eagles quarterback to achieve that dubious distinction since McNabb in 2008 against the Bengals and Ravens.

And that Ravens performance got him benched temporarily for Kevin Kolb, although he did bounce back and lead the Eagles to the NFC Championship Game.

As for Foles, he insists his confidence is as high as ever, despite the worst two-game stretch of his career.

"I feel great," he said. "Honestly I feel great. I know what I can do.

"Sports are crazy at times. You don't always play 100 percent of what you want to do, but you keeping trucking along. You keep working and I feel great.

"I feel really confident. I know the guys are confident in me. I've played with a lot of these guys. I've played with a lot of these coaches and I'm excited to get to work, get ready for the playoffs and keep this thing rolling."

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