Win or lose, the Eagles will wrap up their season on Sunday against the Giants and then set off into an offseason that will feature questions about the quarterback position.
Mark Sanchez will start the finale, but is headed for free agency, and Nick Foles is recovering from a broken collarbone that ended an erratic season for the opening day starter. On Wednesday, coach Chip Kelly said that the decision-making process for 2015 isn’t going to be a quick one.
“I just haven’t evaluated anything,” Kelly said, via ESPN.com. “For me to stand here on Wednesday, the day before Christmas, and say I’ve made my full evaluation of the quarterbacks, is not fair to anybody. We have a process that we go through. I’m going to watch every single game, every single throw, every single decision that everybody made at every position before we make legitimate decisions in terms of what we do.I don’t think it’s fair to any player to say, `Yeah, I saw enough. Let’s sit down today and make a decision on what we’re going to do for the rest of the year.’ That’s just not the way we do it. We have a process that we go through, and that process takes a while.”
The process will surely include evaluations of other quarterbacks that will be available in free agency and the draft, which only adds to the timeline and gives the Eagles a lot of options to sift through as they make their plans for next year. Whichever direction they decide to go, they’ll need their quarterbacks to do a better job of holding onto the ball next season. Foles and Sanchez have each turned the ball over 13 times this year, something that can’t happen again if the Eagles want to keep playing beyond Week 17.