There’s still some late-afternoon daylight left when Nick Foles jogs onto the field at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on Dec. 16. The bass of the warmup soundtrack thumps from the end zone. The Eagles’ quarterback lofts passes up the right sideline, then the left. Half an hour before kickoff the team huddles together, with Foles in the middle. For Philadelphia, at 6-7, the sun is going down—on both the afternoon and the promise of the 2018 season.
Imagine what Foles is thinking right now. Maybe he’s looking back to the years he spent cast aside, labeled a career backup.