When San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick signed his new 6-year, $126-million contract with a record setting $61-million guaranteed earlier this week, nobody could have been more happy than Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Nick Foles and his agent.

Colin Kaepernick has basically set the market for young quarterbacks looking to do a new deal within the next year or two. Fortunately for Foles, he is one of those young quarterback and is able to redo his deal after the 2014 season. In other words, Kaepernick has basically set up a big pay day for Foles.

Obviously the Eagles aren’t going to just hand a lot of money over to Foles, with nothing to back it up. If Foles can avoid a total disaster in 2o14, there is no question he could see a similar contract as Kaepernick, especially if the team wins the division for the second consecutive year and makes the playoffs.

The NFL is a quarterback driven league, and whereas many teams spend decades searching for theirs, the Eagles haven’t had that problem. If they believe that Foles is their franchise quarterback, then Foles and his agent will expect to get paid like a franchise quarterback, which unfortunately costs a lot of money.

This may have been one reason why the Eagles did get rid of wide receiver DeSean Jackson. Without Jackson, a lot of pressure on offense will be placed on Foles, and we’ll really get to see how far Foles can carry this team without last year’s number one target.

It would have been impossible for the Eagles to keep both Foles and Jackson past 2014, and this season could be a test for Foles and could be reassurance that the Eagles made the right decision. If Foles really is great, he will make plays with the weapons that he has been provided with.

There is no question Foles deserves a bigger contract, but as mentioned earlier, he will still need to go out and prove it. He had good stats last season, and he will need to continue playing at that high level if he wants to get numbers similar to Kaepernick.

Heck, Foles has the better stats than Kaepernick and is arguably the better passer. You could almost put any quarterback in San Francisco and they would still make the playoffs, that’s just how good that defense is and how good their weapons on offense are. That’s no disrespect to Kaepernick, it’s just the facts.

Foles took a team that went 6-10 the season prior to him taking over and was off to a rough start last season going 1-3, and took them to the playoffs. Kaepernick took a team that was already in the NFC championship game the year before he took over.

That’s all beyond the point though. Kaepernick was one play away from a Super Bowl win and has a 4-2 record in the post season, whereas Foles has yet to win a playoff game. The main point is that Kaepernick may have just helped Foles out in a big way if he can continue to prove that he is the quarterback of the future for the Eagles.