Eagles stand behind Nick Foles after another lackluster game

PHILADELPHIA --Eaglescoach Doug Pederson stuck by quarterback Nick Foles and spread the blame around following a lackluster offensive performance in the regular-season finale against the Dallas Cowboys.

Foles went 4-of-11 for 39 yards (3.5 yards per attempt) with an interception in a 6-0 home loss. With the No. 1 seed in the playoffs locked up, Foles and many of the offensive starters were pulled after one quarter of play to avoid injury. The coaching staff was hoping the offense would bounce back from a down game against the Oakland Raiders the week prior, but instead it saw more of the same during Sunday's cameo.

"Am I concerned? I'm not concerned. I've still got a lot of confidence in [Foles]," Pederson said. "It's not one person, not one guy. There's enough to go around. It's tough in that situation where you know you're going to maybe only get a quarter, maybe a couple series, and you're coming out. But I've still got a lot of confidence in the guys."

Pederson cited penalties (they were flagged on back-to-back plays during Foles' final drive of the afternoon) and a key third-down drop from receiver Torrey Smith as contributing factors, and also said weather played a role for the second consecutive week. It only got up to 17 degrees in Philly on Sunday afternoon.

"It's hard. The winds were howling, the winds were swirling on the field today. It's difficult when we were heading towards the north end zone, it was difficult to really [throw] a tight spiral," Pederson said. "You've seen it now two weeks in a row with all the quarterbacks."

Foles' interception to cornerback Chidobe Awuzie falls on him, though, as does a good amount of the responsibility for the team's offensive struggles over the past two weeks in the absence of the injured Carson Wentz. He is 23-of-49 (47 percent) for 202 yards with a TD and two interceptions since his four-touchdown outing against the New York Giants in Week 15.

Foles said he remains confident.

"I've played a lot of football," he said. "I know who I am as a player, and I also know that throughout my career and my life I haven't always played great games. I've been in games where execution hasn't always gone like we wanted to, and the key is you remain confident because you know who you are, you know you're going to prepare every day to do everything to the best of your ability. ... We went out there and played as hard as we could. We didn't execute, but that's stuff we can fix."

Despite the recent slide offensively, the Eagles finished the regular season 13-3 and hold the top seed in the conference. That has the players feeling good about their situation even if Foles' performance has rattled some nerves on the outside.

"We still won 13 games, No. 1 seed, everybody's gotta come through Philly. I don't care if you were starting at quarterback, you should be confident in that," said safety Malcolm Jenkins. "We've got an opportunity to win and put ourselves deep into the playoffs. We win one game, we're in the NFC Championship, at home in Philly. So yeah, I don't care who we've got at quarterback, who we've got on offense -- we take those odds."