Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie is happy to have Nick Foles, now.
But having him back on his roster required a couple of big checks that Lurie had to sign off on first.
Via Dan Graziano of ESPN.com, Lurie said he was so grateful to have Foles as his backup quarterback that he didn’t mind the $12 million it cost him.
The $7 million in guarantees he gave to Foles to come back was one thing, but that meant getting rid of Chase Daniel even though they owed him $5 million this year.
“Our priority, as you’ve seen, is to make sure we have the very best possible other starting quarterback,” Lurie said. “I won’t even call [Foles] a backup, because we had him evaluated as a very strong quarterback. He’s been 18-5 for us over the last 23 games when Nick has started a game and finished. His quarterback rating in the postseason -- he’s a big-time, big-game player. That’s Nick.
“And we utilized about $12 million to have a second quarterback. And it may have seemed irrational, but I remember the phone call when it was [executive vice president of football operations] Howie [Roseman] and I talking, and we said, ‘We have an opportunity to do this. Do you have any reservations of using this $12 million this way versus other positions?’ And we both agreed this was absolutely the right thing to do. We never knew it would come to this, but we knew that Nick could win big games for us.”
The Eagles have made plenty of bold personnel moves, but without Lurie being willing to accept a sunk cost, they might not have this chance.