By Ben Sullivan
At first blush, the Eagles game Sunday against the Tennessee Titans is a lay-up.
The Titans aren’t very good and they have a rookie quarterback.
But hold on. Their rookie QB may be the best in the NFL
“He’s got an NFL arm,” Eagles coach Chip Kelly said Friday of Zach Mettenberger. “I think that kind of jumps out on the tape when you watch him make all the throws that he makes. The other thing is there’s a toughness to him. He stands in the pocket. He does not look at the rush. He doesn’t pay attention to anything going on in front of him. He doesn’t get his eyes down at times. When he’s in his drop, he’s in his drop. He’s looking for the open receivers and doing a really good job of putting the ball on guys.
“For a rookie sometimes you can get. . . there’s a lot of different things going on, so your mind is kind of in a lot of different places. He seems to be able to focus in despite what’s going on around him and will stand in there and throw the football. So he’s got some toughness to him. Obviously he’s got some resiliency to him. He opened up the game throwing a pick to Pittsburgh on Monday night, but then came back and really, I thought, played well and performed well in their offense and put them in a position where they were up in the second half. So I think for a young quarterback to not get rattled like that, I think it says a little bit about what his mental toughness is about.”
Mettenberger’s 61.9 percent completion percentage is second-best among the rookies to Bortles’ 63.3 percent and other than Carr (14 to 9), he’s the only one with more touchdown passes (5) than interceptions (4).
Still, he’s a rookie making his fourth NFL start in a hostile environment against a team in need of a win and coming off a blowout loss. That’s not an easy chore.
“I don’t know enough about him in the short time that he’s been in the league to kind of say, ‘Hey, we’ve got ‑‑ this is going to be difficult for him or not be difficult for him.’ ” Kelly said. “Sometimes there’s not enough tape out there to see really what has affected him in terms of, ‘Is it more of a blitz look? Is it less of a blitz look? Is it more of a coverage aspect of it? Is it more of a disguise aspect of it?’
“He has been impressive in the games that he’s been in there because a lot of rookies, again like I said earlier, will watch the rush and look at some other things, and he seems to be pretty focused in terms of where he’s trying to get the football.”
