Noted Viking Killer Heads to Colts
Dustin Baker
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The overly crowded days in the Chicago Bears QB room are finished, as Viking killer Nick Foles signed with the Indianapolis Colts on Monday.
Foles has now played for nearly a fifth of all the NFL’s teams, making stop #6 in the NFC South. To date, Foles has played for the Eagles, Rams, Chiefs, Jaguars, and Bears.
With the Colts, the Arizona alumnus will backup Matt Ryan, who was acquired via trade in March. Indianapolis auditioned another former Eagles quarterback in 2021, Carson Wentz, lasting only one season because the experiment crumbled on the biggest stage of the regular season. The Colts were one win away from the postseason but coughed away a gimme game to the lowly Jaguars.
Foles, 33, is known to Minnesota Vikings fans for one reason — he led the Philadelphia team that ousted the Vikings from the 2017 postseason. Minnesota was undergoing a storybook march to the Promised Land, which would’ve culminated in a home Super Bowl at U.S. Bank Stadium five years ago. But Foles, playing in reservist duty for the aforementioned Carson Wentz, had other plans. The Eagles pulverized the Vikings in the 2017 NFC Championship, 38-7, tallying Minnesota’s sixth consecutive conference championship failure.
The Eagles snuffed out the dynastic Patriots in Minneapolis two weeks later to win Super Bowl LII.
And that seven-week stretch was basically it for Foles’ career renaissance. He started fast with Philadelphia in 2013, earning a trip to the Pro Bowl in his sophomore season. Soon after, his fortune changed as he devolved into a run-of-the-mill quarterback with the Rams and Chiefs. Foles took the backup QB job behind Wentz — and effectuated his magnum opus from December 2017 to February 2018. The Vikings were merely a victim.
Foles parlayed the Super Bowl ring into a $30.5 million payday in Jacksonville but never caught on as the QB1. All told with the Jaguars, he started four games, won none, and returned to the NFC as a fringe QB1 with the Bears.
In Chicago, Foles played musical chairs at QB with Mitchell Trubisky, Andy Dalton, and Justin Fields. But this offseason, the Bears jettisoned their leadership and hired a new general manager and head coach. Foles and Dalton ventured elsewhere, first Dalton to the Saints and now Foles to the Colts.
Foles has started four games in his career versus the Vikings, winning just one time — the one that mattered the most in the playoffs.
For broader context, Foles’ magic against Minnesota is why the Vikings signed current quarterback Kirk Cousins. The quarterback for the 2017 Vikings was Case Keenum, and he was outdueled by Foles on a visible stage. To nudge a team that was “this close” to the Super Bowl, former general manager Rick Spielman signed Cousins two months later.
Foles owns claims to a few notable NFL records — most passing touchdowns in a game (7), consecutive pass completions (25), and the highest all-time pass completion percentage in the playoffs (2017, 72.6%).
Dustin Baker is a political scientist who graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2007. Subscribe to his daily YouTube Channel, VikesNow. He hosts a podcast with Bryant McKinnie, which airs every Wednesday with Raun Sawh and Sally from Minneapolis. His Viking fandom dates back to 1996. Listed guilty pleasures: Peanut Butter Ice Cream, ‘The Sopranos,’ and The Doors (the band).
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