No matter how much of a renegade Philadelphia Eagles coach Chip Kelly is, it was hard to imagine him voluntarily benching quarterback Nick Foles, even though Foles hasn’t been good this season.
He likely had that choice taken out of his hands, perhaps for the next month or longer, when Foles went down with an injury on Sunday.
Foles was on fire last season and hadn’t recaptured that this year. Nobody expected a repeat of his 27-touchdown, two-interception 2013 season, but his rating was down nearly 40 points from last year’s 119.2 mark. He looked indecisive. His 10th interception this season was returned for a touchdown on Sunday by Houston.
It was clear that either Foles needed to turn it around or the Eagles – whose defense and special teams have been very good this season – were going to be limited. Or, Foles had to get hurt and force Kelly’s hand. And then maybe Mark Sanchez would have to come off the bench for the injured starter and help the Eagles get on a roll in the second half. That probably sounds quite familiar to Foles.
CSN Philly, citing a source, said Foles has a broken clavicle. If that's the case, he could miss at least a month. And then the next month or so will be very interesting for a team with legitimate Super Bowl hopes.
Sanchez became a punchline with the Jets, but he hasn’t looked like that guy with the Eagles. He was 25-of-31 for 281 yards, two touchdowns and an interception in the preseason. That’s not the greatest evaluation point, but it was intriguing for a player who was once the fifth overall pick and didn’t have a great supporting cast in New York.
Sanchez played well on Sunday. He started his day with a 52-yard pass to Jeremy Maclin. He finished that drive with a beautiful touchdown pass to Jordan Matthews. Sanchez was 15-of-22 for 202 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions. The Eagles won 31-21. Without any practice reps with the starters, he looked as good coming in cold off the bench as Foles has this season.

Last year, Foles got the job when Michael Vick got hurt and he kept it the rest of the season. He led the Eagles to a 7-1 record and NFC East title in the second half. Maybe Sanchez will fall apart with extended playing time. He is, after all, a player with one more interception than touchdown passes in 63 career games. We haven’t seen enough from Sanchez in this offense to definitively say if he’ll be better than Foles or even as good. Nobody roots for an injury, but this one will give the Eagles the chance to answer a pretty important question at quarterback.
You’d think that a Super Bowl contender losing a starting quarterback to injury would be one of Sunday’s losers. But who knows, this might end up being a blessing in disguise for the Eagles. That’s what happened last year after all.
Here are the rest of the winners and losers from Week 9:
WINNERS
Ryan Tannehill
Tannehill has turned around the perception of what he is as a quarterback in just three weeks. Not coincidentally, the Miami Dolphins have turned around their season the past three weeks too.
Tannehill continued his hot streak with a great performance on Sunday in a very surprising 37-0 win over the San Diego Chargers. It’s not that shocking that the Dolphins won, but it was shocking the way they dominated a talented opponent.
Tannehill was 24-of-34 for 288 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions. He also rushed for 47 yards, and has been oddly consistent in the running game lately (his rushing yards the last four games: 49, 48, 48, 47). Tannehill was criticized a lot early in the season, but he was progressing fine. He would make some errors that he needed to clean up to take the next step. He has done that and then some, and is a big reason the Dolphins are 5-3 and looking like a legitimate playoff contender.

Bill Belichick: Here we are again. Maybe Belichick just uses September as a second preseason. Hey, it’s easy for Patriots fans to mock the concerns anyone had about the Patriots after the blowout loss to the Kansas City Chiefs on Sept. 29, but if you say you didn’t have any concerns at all, you’re lying. Of course there were concerns. The Patriots looked either shaky or downright awful for most of September.
But Belichick is the greatest coach of this generation for a reason.
The problems have been fixed. A big part of the equation is that the incomparable Rob Gronkowski is healthy again, and he’s the best tight end I’ve ever seen. The offensive line is playing much better, the defense has weathered injuries, Tom Brady looks great again. And Belichick has pushed all the right buttons. The Patriots looked incredible in picking apart the Broncos, who were clearly the best team in the NFL coming in.
The Arizona Cardinals’ Bruce Arians has a great argument for coach of the year at the unofficial halfway mark of the NFL season. But Belichick has one too. Whatever happened in September – don’t forget that the Patriots needed a bad drop by Denarius Moore to barely beat the Oakland Raiders at home – it’s over. Belichick has figured it out. And we’re reminded that as long as Brady and Belichick are in New England to not write obituaries until they have no pulse left.
Marshawn Lynch: There was a very small portion of the country actually paying attention to the Seattle Seahawks’ less-than-spectacular 30-24 win over the Oakland Raiders, so you missed the kind of run that has made Lynch one of the most exciting players in the NFL.
Lynch just refused to go down on a 3-yard touchdown run. He was hit in the backfield and kept moving. At one point he had two Raiders defenders pushing him back and another defender grabbing his leg. And he just plowed forward and scored. It wasn’t a very long run, but it’s still amazing:

Mike Evans: Evans, the seventh overall pick of this year’s draft, had his breakout game for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He had seven catches for 124 yards, both career bests, and doubled his career touchdown total with two scores. He had a couple other plays in which he was open but Mike Glennon underthrew him. Evans' big day came in a loss to the Browns, but the second half of the Bucs’ season is about things like Evans’ development, because salvaging a decent record is probably out of the question.
Evans made Johnny Manziel’s “money” hand sign after both scores. The two were teammates at Texas A&M and are good friends.
"It just came to my mind," Evans said, according to ESPN.com. "That's one of my best buds. I just wanted to give him a hard time.”
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Percy Harvin and the Jets: It’s another team that is so far gone, wins and losses don’t matter much for the rest of the season. But developing players for 2015 is pretty big, and the Jets had to like what they saw from Harvin on Sunday.
Harvin had 23 regular-season catches for Seattle after signing with the Seahawks in the 2013 offseason. He had 11 catches on Sunday for 129 yards. The Jets lost 24-10 to the Chiefs, and they’re going to lose a lot more games too, but if the trade for Harvin keeps looking good and they keep him going forward, there’s at least something worthwhile from this season.

LOSERS
San Francisco 49ers: Argue all you want about the final fumble call, which was nearly impossible to call but ended up being a Rams fumble recovery to end Sunday’s game. It shouldn't have come to that. What matters is that the 49ers are 4-4, and were just beaten at home by a disappointing Rams team.
Quarterback Colin Kaepernick continues to underwhelm. He hasn’t been bad this season, but he isn’t getting any better either. Kaepernick lost a couple fumbles and led the 49ers to just 10 points. He was inaccurate on more than a few passes. What will get lost in the hoopla of the fumble at the end was that if he made an easy throw to Michael Crabtree two plays earlier, the 49ers would have won. He threw it way too low, Crabtree had to lunge to reach it and was inches short of the end zone when he caught it.
The 49ers should have won the game. The defense, led by rookie linebacker Chris Borland and his 18 tackles (15 solo), did its part. The offense came up short. Now the 49ers are 4-4 and unless there’s a big second half coming (the schedule has plenty of tough games), it’s going to be a very interesting offseason in San Francisco.


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A few AFC wild-card contenders: It’s early in the season, but it’s also pretty clear that some good teams will get shut out of the AFC playoffs. There are only six spots, and way more good teams than spots.
The AFC has an astonishing 11 teams with at least five wins already: New England, Buffalo, Miami, Cincinnati, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Denver, San Diego and Kansas City. Houston is right behind at 4-5. It seemed like the NFC would be the deeper conference, but the AFC is proving that wrong.
This will all be sorted out as we go, and it will be fun to watch unfold. But some good teams should be preparing to get squeezed out at the end.
John Elway: Elway has been a great general manager for the Broncos – in fact, he’s the only great quarterback in NFL history to go on to become a successful coach or GM – and the Broncos will be fine despite what happened in New England. But he made one very risky move this year, cutting Pro Bowl kicker Matt Prater to keep rookie Brandon McManus, and it is not looking good so far.
If there was something more to cutting Prater, who was serving a four-game suspension, that hasn’t been revealed. The Broncos went out of their way to say the move was just a football decision, so let’s judge it on football results. McManus is just six-of-nine on field-goal attempts, and three of his successful attempts are from less than 30 yards. He’s 50 percent on attempts of 30 yards or more. He missed a 41-yarder against New England, and then later on a fourth and 6, the Broncos went for it instead of trying a 51-yarder with McManus. As the Denver Post’s Mike Klis pointed out, McManus’s miss cost them six points: three for the miss and three more when coach John Fox had no faith in him. Prater missed one attempt all last season. Prater is not off to a great start in Detroit, but switching teams after the season started couldn’t have helped him.
The Broncos are going to need a reliable kicker in the playoffs. Maybe McManus will develop into that player. But a risky move with an otherwise loaded roster isn’t paying off yet for Elway.
Ryan Fitzpatrick: It wasn’t a good day for the Houston Texans. Running back Arian Foster left with a groin injury. Rookie outside linebacker Jadeveon Clowney might have been on Instagram liking photos during a game in which he was inactive, according to Houston radio host Nick Wright (coach Bill O’Brien said he would look into it, via the Houston Chronicle’s Brian Smith) and that came after rumblings the team is frustrated with him (Yahoo's Eric Adelson wrote about that here). And the Texans might have a tough decision to make at quarterback.
The Texans lost 31-21 and Fitzpatrick wasn’t very good. He completed just 13-of-27 passes for 203 yards. After the game O’Brien was asked about his quarterback situation, and he gave an interesting response:
Asked about QB change, O'Brien said everything will be evaluated. O'Brien placed blame on himself. #Texans
— Brian T. Smith (@ChronBrianSmith) November 2, 2014
That’s not a sign of support. And backup Ryan Mallett's tweet after the game won't calm the situation.
I'm staying focused for when the time comes...seize the opportunity #justwaiting
— Ryan Mallett (@Ryan_mallett_15) November 3, 2014
That’s a lot to digest in one day for the Texans.
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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YahooSchwab