Saturday night, the Philadelphia Eagles second season begins. The kings of the NFC in the regular season, Philly owns home field in the playoffs and Lincoln Financial Field should be rocking in their NFC Divisional playoff matchup against the defending NFC champion Atlanta Falcons.

Nick Foles will be the man under center for the Eagles. He replaced quarterback Carson Wentz, after a knee injury sidelined Philadelphia’s starter for the rest of the season.

Foles, 28, was selected by Philadelphia in the 3rd round of the 2012 Draft. In 2013, he burst onto the scene and had one of the great seasons in Eagles history, throwing for 2,891 yards and 27 TD with just two interceptions. However the light dimmed a bit in 2013 and by 2015, he found himself traded to the St. Louis Rams. In 2016, he was moved again to the Kansas City Chiefs as a backup quarterback to Alex Smith.

It appeared Foles NFL career might be over.

Sharing with You Version’s Bible app devotional back in the summer of 2017, Foles spoke for the first time about how close he got to almost ending his professional football career.

“A lot of people don’t know this — I’m going to share this right now, because I think it’s important. After my time with a certain NFL team, I wanted to retire,” Foles said. “This was a year ago. I wanted to retire from the NFL, and I really struggled. I couldn’t pick up a football for about eight months. I had no love for the game, and it was tough.”

Foles shared that it was a time of prayer and connection to God that brought him back.

“I kept reading scripture, I kept praying, I kept asking God — and so many of us ask God for signs, we ask God, ‘Hey, please just put it on the wall, like, I want to know,’ but that’s not how it works,” Foles said. “He’s not always going to do that. He was shaping me. He was bringing me down to my knees … At that moment, through that prayer, He said, ‘Hey, just take a step of faith. You’re either going to stop playing the game of football and you’re going to go onto a different area of your life and I’m going to be with you, I’m going to be the most important thing in your life, or you’re going to step back into football and you’re going to continue to play and I’m going to be with you every step of the way and you’re going to play to glorify me.”

Foles shared from scripture in 2 Corinthians 12:9 and how that helped him in his decision to return to the NFL.

“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.'” – 2 Corinthians 12:9

Foles said choosing to return to football was the “greatest decision I ever made because of what I went through” and that it gave him a “completely reinvigorated outlook on the game.”

The Eagles are glad Foles chose to return and the fans of Philadelphia will be rooting for No. 9 in the hopes that a Super Bowl trip to Minneapolis is in the future for the Philly faithful.

Foles and the Eagles take on the Falcons on Saturday Night at 8 p.m. ET on NBC.