Philly Finishes

It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.  But it’s the start of the season and the Eagles are the first team in NFL history to overcome double-digit halftime deficits in each of the first two weeks of the season.

Philly finds themselves at 2-0, but they’re living dangerously. The Eagles fell behind 17-0 against Jacksonville on opening day before hanging 34 unanswered points on the Jaguars defense. Monday night, Andrew Luck & Co. watched as Nick Foles rallied the Eagles back from 14 points down in the third quarter to a 30-27 win over the Colts at Lucas Oil Stadium.

Just like the opener against the Jaguars, Foles’ play was uneven for most of the game. But just like the opener against the Jaguars, he made up for it with some big-time throws late.

The Eagles are the first team in NFL history to overcome double-digit halftime deficits in each of the first two weeks of the season.

They’ve been outscored 34-6 in the first half and outscored their opponents 58-10 in the second.

There are a lot of reasons for that, but Foles’ second-half resolve is a big one.

“It’s good to have that in your arsenal, that you know that your team can stick together through adversity,” Foles said early Tuesday morning. “Do you want to go down like this every single week? I mean, if that’s what it takes, we’ll do it, but we need to play better football in the first half offensively.

“Our defense is doing a great job. So we really need to get things going and that’s something that we’ll work on this week and something that we’ll look to improve. There’s a lot of stuff that, even though we won like we did … there’s a lot of stuff to improve on. That’s the exciting thing for us, we need to improve.”

In two games, Foles is 25 for 45 for 326 yards, no touchdowns, two interceptions and one lost fumble before halftime.

He’s 23 for 37 for 327 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions after halftime.

First-half passer rating: 60.0.

Second-half passer rating: 117.8.

Monday night, he engineered four scoring drives generating 24 points in the final 19 ½ minutes.

“I thought Nick was just like the whole team,” head coach Chip Kelly said. “I thought he showed a lot of resiliency.

“They had a few drops on him in the first half, he probably could have placed the ball better a few times, it was a combination between him and the receivers and I think everybody kind of just settled down and when we needed it, he did it.”

Foles had only one career fourth-quarter comeback win coming into the season, but he’s now the 19th quarterback in NFL history to rally his team back from a fourth-quarter deficit in each of the first two games of the season.

He hasn’t been nearly as sharp as last year, but he’s overcome it two weeks in a row.

And that says an awful lot.

“I think that I can definitely play better,” Foles said. “I think that I missed some throws that I need to hit. I know that my teammates depend on me and I am going to continue to improve. I’m going to work each and every day.

“There’s a lot of room for improvement and I just have to take it one day at a time. I’m really excited that we got this win because it’s a big one and now we just have to recover and get going again because we have a short week.”

Here’s a scary thing. Foles has not yet played a complete game, but he’s second in the NFL with 653 passing yards — just 26 behind Matt Ryan.

More importantly, he’s 9-1 in his last 10 regular-season starts and 10-2 as a starter under Chip Kelly.

But the Eagles know they can’t get away with the mistakes they made in the first half of both wins.

The missed opportunities, the red-zone inefficiency, the dropped passes, the penalties … the Eagles have gotten away with them so far.

And Foles knows he has to be more consistent and play 60 efficient minutes instead of 30.

“I missed some throws,” Foles siad. “I missed some throws that could have really helped us out and if I hit those throws, it will shorten the chains.

“I need to be a little more accurate, give my guys the opportunity to catch the ball and run with it.”