The Packers can’t wait for their starting quarterback to get back in the lineup, but there’s probably no such pressure for Michael Vick to make his way back to the lineup in Philadelphia.
Nick Foles threw three more touchdown passes without an interception on Sunday, running his total to 16 scores and no picks on the season, and the Eagles improved to 5-5 with a 27-13 win in Green Bay. If the Cowboys lose to the Saints on Sunday night, the Eagles will be tied for first place in the division and that’s something that seemed hard to fathom while they were scoring just 10 points combined in losses to the Cowboys and Giants last month.
Foles wasn’t perfect on Sunday, he fumbled once and underthrew a pass that the Packers wound up deflecting to DeSean Jackson for a touchdown, but he avoided the kinds of catastrophic mistakes than crushed the team in those two losses and made a big play with his feet as well to set up one of the scores. With LeSean McCoy churning up yards, that’s enough to keep the Eagles offense moving and the remaining six games on their schedule aren’t so daunting that more of the same seems impossible the rest of the way.
The Packers aren’t sitting quite so pretty in the division as they’re now looking up at the Lions in the NFC North. Scott Tolzien wound up 24-of-39 for 280 yards with a touchdown and two interceptions in his first NFL action. It was pretty good for a guy with no first team experience and would have looked better if Jordy Nelson was ruled to have held onto a ball in the end zone in the fourth quarter or if Mason Crosby hit a couple more field goals, but it wasn’t enough to overcome what the defense gave up to Foles and McCoy.
Things got even worse on the injury front, too. Center Evan Dietrich-Smith and tackle Don Barclay (who moved to guard after Dietrich-Smith was hurt) both left the game with injuries and did not return. Tolzien likely did enough to get another start next week at the Giants, but that defense will need to do more to help him than they did this week.