One thing is for sure:

Tiger turned into Clay after Foles started to play well. He talked about how opposing quarterbacks against the Indy defense had a qb rating of 101 or something.

Like I said, we know Alex's ceiling and floor. We have a pretty good idea that Foles' floor is decidedly much worse than Alex's, but cannot say the same for his ceiling.

Foles is a better and more willing downfield passer; there's not much argument there.

But let's not act like the first deep ball that Foles completed was worth a shit (it wasn't; that was a terribad throw) or the second one wasn't one that Cassel couldn't have completed. Smith has made several throws tougher than that one recently.

I think it's more likely than not that both of those plays have similar results. On the first two deep balls that Alex threw, the Colts DB actually had good coverage. He didn't mis-fire on the throws, the defender just made the play. As has been noted, he was pretty sharp before the first hit. His strikes to Kelce were perfectly on time and hit Kelce in stride. On the 2 deep throws in question that that Foles made, one was blown coverage and on the other the throw may honestly have been too poor to be defended; he underthrew Hill by 5 yards there.

And let's not act like Smith has repeatedly not seen the open WRs throughout his career.

And I'm just fine with that.

Wish Alex had Foles arm strength and just a little more confidence. Well that would give us the most underrated QB in football right now...Marriotta.

I'm thinking if he soaks his head in Epsom Salt and warm water - he'll be a go next week!!

Nick Foles -or- Tom Petty??
 

What a fantastic avatar.

Smith's a progression robot. He's going to throw to the first guy in his progression that's open.

With at fast as that ball came out to Hill, don't you think he was the first read? Let's face it, stuff like that still requires a bit of luck. Had the first read been to Foles right and that guy breaks open, the ball would've come out (that's just the way the WCO works) and the blown coverage means nothing. But because the first read was to the left, that thing blowing open was obvious and the ball comes out.

And Foles missed a similarly easy throw to Conley that turned a long TD into a 20 yarder. Foles has never been known for laser-like precision so sure, it may have been some rust, but he's also just not a remarkably precise passer and you'll get misses like that.

Against shit teams, that's gonna be fine. Against a team where they're actually...I dunno...covering your WRs, that's going to get you in a lot of trouble quickly.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens this weekend. I think some of the throws that he missed were rust and some of them were just how Foles is as a passer. I don't even know if Smith is going to play this weekend or not. I'm almost for them holding him out because the Jaguars aren't that tough of an opponent. Foles should be able to pull out a win.

I'm w/ Pete - my bigger concern is w/ Ware - Hoping he doesn't miss two weeks, somehow.

I agree; keep Smith out.

And I'm not closing the book on Foles being better, but he'd have to have developed quite a bit over the last couple of years. I thought he was a lot of fool's gold even in his elite season. He's shown far more bad than good as an NFL passer, IMO. I have a hard time convincing myself that a guy that couldn't keep his job over Case Keenum is now capable of leading a super bowl caliber offense against quality defenses.

Is he just a poor man's Carr? My worry is that he plays well against a Jags team that's looking to quit. In the process, he doesn't actually do anything to answer that question but suddenly there will be real grumblings in KC about the QB situation. If we make the change and it turns out he's a paper tiger that gets beat up by good defenses, we may be too far down the road to reverse course.

Best case scenario is that Smith just comes back healthy and plays like he did for the last half of last season (or the last half of 2013).

This is true, generally how these pass progressions work on 5 or 7 step drops is the first read is always one of the outside WRs. Normally you put your fastest guys on the left side (Hence Hill seeing a lot of action that side).

For example when Kelce runs that drag/cross from Right to Left it is open because the Left WR is normally running a Go or a Post and clears out.

I think it is clear that Foles likes to use the progression properly where as Alex tends to cheat and is already hunting the intermediate route which means he is quicker to the check down.

When do you think we'll know if Ware will be fine? By Wed or so?