Why Nick Foles is bound to disappoint the Jaguars

The Jacksonville Jaguars have many regrets. After reportedly signing Nick Foles, they're about to add to their collection.

Foles, despite everything he's done on the biggest stage, has been inconsistent throughout his career and lacks much recent experience under center. Bringing the 30-year-old aboard on a reported four-year contract worth $88 million ($50.125 million guaranteed) will handcuff Jacksonville and its roster-building plans.

Despite what you may hear or read otherwise, Foles is only a stopgap solution. The Jaguars treating him as more could become problematic - and fast.

Getting paid

In 2018, Foles' $13.6-million cap hit ranked 20th among quarterbacks, according to Spotrac.

The very lowest baseline for his next deal was the contract Case Keenum signed last offseason, also as a 30-year-old. Keenum dazzled as a replacement starter in 2017 while guiding the Minnesota Vikings to a division title and inked a two-year agreement with the Denver Broncos worth $36 million, with $25 million guaranteed.

Predictably, after only fleeting success prior to his breakout year with the Vikings, Keenum flopped in Denver last season. He threw the second-most interceptions in the league (15), and he's now a member of the Redskins after a trade to Washington.

Not only does a similar fate likely await the Jaguars, they guaranteed Foles double what the Broncos guaranteed Keenum.

Good but not great

Some will point to Foles' playoff heroics and heap praise on the veteran's poise in clutch situations. Postseason wins and the leadership skills required in January carry weight. We can even minimize the influence of Doug Pederson's offensive scheming over the past two seasons, and of Chip Kelly's during Foles' Pro Bowl campaign in 2013.

Go ahead. Do all that and ignore Foles' stretches of merely passable play, like the seven regular-season appearances in 2017 when his poor deep passing put him firmly in the league's cellar:

Still, like other good-but-not-great quarterbacks before him, Foles found a suitor ready to toss aside all the warning signs and dive into a financial abyss.

Case in point: The list of recent QB contracts that induce cold sweats at night extends well beyond Keenum. It also includes Alex Smith, who received a mammoth four-year deal from the Redskins last offseason that guarantees him $71 million.

Smith had significantly more regular-season experience than Foles, but much of that came as a "game manager" on struggling teams. He appeared in six playoff games to Foles' seven and didn't own any postseason hardware. Regardless, the Redskins had an opening under center and were willing to spend big.

Derek Carr's on the list too, as he's failed miserably since signing a contract with the Oakland Raiders that guarantees him $70 million. In the two years since inking his deal, Carr's thrown 23 interceptions for a team that's won only 10 games. His 6.26-yard average depth of target from a clean pocket was the NFL's lowest in 2018, according to Pro Football Focus.

The Raiders surely didn't think they were paying for a chronic checkdown tosser. But for now, that's their reality, and like other merely above-average quarterbacks deemed worthy of franchise money, Carr occupies a crippling portion of the team's financial resources.

The Jaguars can conveniently look past the sample-size issues that come with a quarterback who made only 14 starts over the past three seasons, including the playoffs.

His new general manager can choose to believe that the Foles who threw interceptions on more than 3 percent of his pass attempts across 2014 and '15 - far more than his 2 percent and 2.1 percent marks in 2017 and '18, respectively - is a fading memory.

But no amount of wishing and recency bias changes the financial commitment it took to sign a quarterback who's shined brightly, but just briefly.

Foles isn't worth the gamble, but it's already too late for the Jaguars.