In 2011, GQ Magazine voted Philadelphia sports fans, specifically Eagles and Phillies fans, as the worst in America:

“Over the years, Philadelphia fans have booed Santa Claus as well as their own star players. Admittedly, there are some things fans have cheered. Like Michael Irvin’s career-ending neck injury and a fan being tased on the outfield grass. Things reached their nadir last season, when Citizens Bank Park played host to arguably the most heinous incident in the history of sports: A drunken fan intentionally vomited on an 11-year old girl. The truth is this: All told, Philadelphia stadiums house the most monstrous collection of humanity outside of the federal penal system. ‘Some of these people would boo the crack in the Liberty Bell’ baseball legend Pete Rose once said. More likely, these savages would have thrown the battery that cracked it.”

While I do believe Philadelphia fans’ behavior has improved immensely since Lincoln Financial Field and Citizens Bank Park became the new homes of the Eagles and the Phillies, respectively, there’s simply no denying all those other absurd things they’ve done. Even though they’re viewed as the worst fans in America, I also believe, in some way, they’re the best — they’re passionate and they don’t give up on their teams. They’re the best of both worlds.

With all that being said, Eagles fans are now prone, more so than other teams’ fans, to call for the back-up quarterback as soon as the starter fails to perform. Though it’s not as ridiculous as some of the other things the City of Brotherly Love’s fans have done, it still displays how impatient they can be.

 As I watched, or attempted to watch, the Eagles’ game against the Cardinals last week, I read endless drivel via Twitter, seeing things like “Nick Foles should be in!”, or “Michael Vick sucks!” As annoyed as I was with all the fans calling for a rookie back-up quarterback in the third game of the season, I felt like we have experienced the same thing before. And we have.

The 2006-2007 season is where it all began. The Eagles were 4-1 through the first five games. They stumbled a bit, going 1-3 in their next four games, and were headed into a Week 11-matchup with the Tennessee Titans. In the pivotal game against Tennessee, McNabb, who was only 30-years old at the time, saw his season come to an end for the third time in five years when he tore his ACL and meniscus in his right knee after jumping out of bounds. Reid was forced to turn to the veteran Jeff Garcia. After dropping to 5-6 with the loss to Tennessee, Garcia led the Eagles to a 10-6 record, a spot in the playoffs, and the NFC East Division title. Garcia’s success continued into the Wild Card game, when the Eagles defeated the Giants, 23-20. The Eagles’ season came to a disappointing finish, and – like every other year – the Eagles came up short of the one game it’s never been able to win: the Super Bowl.

The 2007 NFL Draft rolled around, and, with the 36^th overall pick in the draft, the Eagles went with the University of Houston’s star quarterback Kevin Kolb, who would end up spending the entire 2007 season as the Eagles’ third-string quarterback, behind Donovan McNabb and A.J. Feeley.

Kolb would eventually take over the back-up role, and patiently waited for his chance to shine. However, in the 2009-2010 season, whenever McNabb would struggle, calls for Kevin Kolb echoed throughout Lincoln Financial Field and all over Philadelphia.

Let’s fast forward to right now.

Donovan McNabb? He’s looking for work, having last played in the NFL for the Minnesota Vikings in 2011, where he lost his starting job to the Vikings’ 2011 first-round pick Christian Ponder.

Kevin Kolb? In case you didn’t hear, the Eagles signed a guy named Michael Vick a couple years ago, and when Kolb suffered a concussion in the first game of the 2010 season, Vick grabbed a hold of the starting spot and ran with it. The Eagles eventually traded Kolb to the Arizona Cardinals for Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, one of the premier young cornerbacks in the league, and a second-round draft pick. Now, here we are, headed into Week 4 of the 2012 NFL season, and Kevin Kolb is being paid $8.5 million a year to back-up John Skelton. Yes, John Skelton.

Although Kolb did get the start, and he (the Cardinals’ defense) did beat the Eagles, the only reason that Kolb was playing, as opposed to watching his former team from the sidelines in his always-backwards cap, was that John Skelton has been sidelined with an ankle injury since Week 1.

Don’t get me wrong — Michael Vick hasn’t exactly been lighting the world on fire either. In fact, he’s struggled tremendously in the Eagles’ first three games but has somehow found a way to eek out two victories. Despite the 2-1 record, Vick has thrown a league-high six interceptions.

When McNabb played poorly, the fans demanded Kevin Kolb. Now, Michael Vick’s performance hasn’t been too sharp, and, yes, the fans are beginning to demand Nick Foles, the guy the Eagles selected in the third round of the 2012 NFL Draft, the guy who has suited up for just three NFL games in his brief career, and the guy who has never taken a single snap in a regular-season NFL game. Yes, that Nick Foles. 

Makes no sense, right? However, to Eagles fans, it makes perfect sense. Completely blind to the fact that the Eagles are 2-1 and, just a week ago, defeated arguably the best team in the AFC, the Baltimore Ravens, the fans quickly jumped to the conclusion that all the responsibility falls on the quarterback. In no way am I making excuses for Vick. He needs to make better decisions. But if you have actually watched the games, and I don’t mean just sit there and cheer when something good happens and yell when something bad happens, I mean actually watched the games, saw what was going on, and asked yourself questions like “Why did that happen?”, you would be able to see that the majority of the blame lies on the men getting paid to protect Vick – the offensive line.

I understand Jason Peters, one of the best linemen in the NFL, and Jason Kelce aren’t there, but, while the guys filling in for them may be back-ups (Demetrius Bell actually isn’t a back-up), they’re still professional football players, and the way they have performed is unacceptable. To put things in perspective, in last week’s game against the Cardinals, Michael Vick was hit 21 times. That wasn’t a typo; Michael Vick was hit 21 times.

Vick has one huge aspect that plays in his favor when it comes to the poor offensive line: his speed. He can escape some of this endless pressure, whereas Foles, while he is larger than Vick and would be able to take more of those brutal hits, wouldn’t be able to escape too many times. If Vick gets hurt, Foles plays. If Vick is healthy, Foles watches from the sidelines. It’s as simple as that.

When it comes down to it, you simply don’t bench a quarterback with a 2-1 record — I don’t care how ugly those two wins were, they’re still wins — who you just paid $100 million to try and do what no other quarterback has been able to do for this Eagles team, and that’s win a Super Bowl — for the team, for the city of Philadelphia, and for the crazy yet lovable (call me crazy), deeply passionate fans.

Even if Michael Vick isn’t going to do that this year, Nick Foles won’t, either.