While everything, on and off the field, seemed to come easily to Foles in high school, the path has not been smooth since. On Brees’s recommendation, he sought out Dr. James Andrews to have his shoulder repaired. He decommitted from Arizona State, choosing instead to go to Michigan State, where he joined a crowded quarterback room with the future N.F.L. players Brian Hoyer and Kirk Cousins. A desire to be closer to his family, and in warmer weather, led him to transfer to Arizona, which in turn led to his being drafted in the third round by Philadelphia in 2012.

From there, his path continued to wind. He made a Pro Bowl for the Eagles after the 2013 season, had a broken collarbone in 2014 derail him significantly, then kicked around from the St. Louis Rams to the Kansas City Chiefs and then back to Philadelphia. His signature confidence was shaken to the point that when the Rams cut him in July 2016, he considered retirement.

Asked if he had truly contemplated walking away at 27, Foles said: “Dead serious. Strong enough to where I thought about where my heart was at that point. And if my heart’s not in it, I’m not going to do it.”

But he gritted out a year as a backup in Kansas City, then reunited with Doug Pederson, who had been Foles’s quarterback coach in his first stint with Philadelphia and was now the team’s head coach. Being back with Pederson seemed to reignite Foles’s ability to believe in himself and have that belief become infectious for the people around him.

That would prove important for the Eagles when their starting quarterback, Carson Wentz, a Most Valuable Player Award candidate, was lost for the season in a Week 14 victory over the Los Angeles Rams.

The offense struggled in the first few weeks under Foles, but his teammates never wavered in their support. Their confidence in him seemed unwarranted, right up until Foles torched the Minnesota Vikings for 352 passing yards and three touchdowns in the N.F.C. championship game. The performance proved he could handle the team’s run-pass option offense — something Foles attributed to his time on a basketball court — and it put the Eagles in their first Super Bowl since the 2004 season.