The biggest question heading into Thursday's opening night kickoff between the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles and the Atlanta Falcons is which Nick Foles will show up.
Will we see the Foles that lit up the playoffs, and the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl, or the Foles who completed 50 percent of his passes for 4.3 yards per attempt with one TD and 1 INT in a Week 16 game against Oakland?
Coming off a preseason in which he didn't exactly instill confidence, Foles will start for the Super Bowl champs on Thursday with Carson Wentz continuing to rehab his knee injury. On Tuesday, Foles was asked when during a game he knows which version showed up.
"I think everyone tries to figure out sports. Sports, you never know," Foles said, via NBC Sports Philadelphia. "You go out there and play, you give everything you have. I think there's plenty of games where there are middle ground that I've played.
"It's just that now my middle ground is if I throw one touchdown, no interceptions, it's a bad game. I've set that bar high. I know that because I expect that for myself. What is a middle ground game? We're going to be analyzed as players. I know as a player, you can be hard on yourself, but you have to learn from your mistakes."
Foles has been a boom-or-bust quarterback during his career. He has 18 career starts with a QB rating greater than 100, 16 starts with a QB rating lower than 80, and just eight starts in between.
We've seen Good Nick in 2013 and 2017, in which his teams went 13-4, and he earned a 64.5 completion percentage, 37-5 TD-INT ratio, with a 110.4 passer rating. Bad Nick showed up the other four seasons, during which Foles completed just 58.5 percent of his passes with a 26-24 TD-INT ratio for a 76.2 passer rating and his teams went 12-14.
Foles compared his streakiness to that of a basketball player trying to find his rhythm.
"The thing about basketball, you have to get a rhythm, you have to feel the dribble, you have to feel your shot, you have to play the game," Foles said. "If I go play pickup basketball right now, I'm not going to be very good because I haven't played in a long time. But if I play for a couple weeks, I'll be back to who I used to be. I'll be able to shoot everywhere, I'll probably be able to dunk again a little bit. It's the same with football. That's how I am as an athlete."
After preseason struggles -- 48.7 passer rating, four turnovers, zero touchdowns -- the question is whether Foles can find his rhythm before Thursday night's tilt.
The Super Bowl champs will need Good Nick to beat a skilled Atlanta Falcons team.
