Nick Foles Stresses Importance of ‘Reading and Reacting’ to Patriots Defense in Super Bowl LII

Nick Foles knows that the New England Patriots are notorious for playing mind games with opposing quarterbacks.

That’s why the Philadelphia Eagles’ QB intends to do his very best not to allow him to get sucked into that little cat-and-mouse game during Super Bowl LII on Sunday.

“I think the big thing is just going out there, reading and reacting, just playing the game,” Foles told Jim Miller and Pat Kirwan on “Movin’ The Chains” on SiriusXM NFL Radio. “They’re going to try to make the QB’s eyes look one way, do something different, and make you question what you saw on film, so I think just reacting to what they’re doing. Because once the ball’s snapped, they have to do what they’re going to do. So just going into this game and executing our plays. We have answers within them. It’s just understanding where to go when that happens.”

Foles has appreciated every step of his wild ride from backup to starting quarterback of a Super Bowl team. His season (and life) changed dramatically on December 10 when starter Carson Wentz suffered a season-ending knee injury against the Los Angeles Rams.

“It is quite the journey,” Foles said. “It’s a great honor to be here. Our team’s gone through a lot this year, so just to be in this position and just the journey we’ve been on, it’s great to go through this week with everyone. Any time anyone goes down, especially at quarterback, it’s tough. I work with him every day, so the first thing you’re worried about his health, his well-being, but the train doesn’t stop. The game doesn’t stop, you continue going on. I think the big thing was I had watched so many reps of Carson, whether it was walk-throughs, practice, playing in a game, studying the film.

“But you have to go there, and you have to do everything full-speed — calling the plays in the huddle that you haven’t necessarily called with these guys. But fortunately, I had played with a lot of them, so they knew my demeanor in the huddle, they know how I play the game. So I was able to pick [things] up faster, but then just talking with [Coach] Doug [Pederson], whether it was during the game or game-planning the next week, telling him what [plays] I like because I actually had to rep a lot of the stuff again just to get a feel of what I like, how to do it.

“So when we had that bye week on the first week of the playoffs, we were able to really self-scout, talk about what was going on, and really fine-tune the game plan to my strengths and our strengths as an offense, so that helped a lot.”