The Cowboys have already spent most of this season tripping over their own mistakes, and now there’s a fresh one staring them in the face. Philadelphia has reportedly turned to Joe Milton as its starting quarterback for Week 9, setting up a scenario Dallas would rather not see come Thanksgiving.
That’s the uncomfortable part for the Cowboys: this isn’t just about an Eagles quarterback change. It’s about a player they let slip away after he had already flashed enough to make people around the league pay attention. If Milton looks good against the Giants, Dallas will have to sit with the possibility that it exposed him on the practice squad and paid for it.
The Eagles are benching Tanner McKee for Sunday’s game against the Giants, according to Adam Schefter and Mike Garafolo, and Milton is now on track to face Dallas on Thanksgiving. For a Cowboys team that is already 3-5 and fresh off blowing a two-touchdown fourth-quarter lead to the Cardinals, that’s the kind of development that can turn a bad season into an even uglier one.
Milton landed in Philadelphia on October 16, when the Eagles signed him off the Cowboys’ practice squad after Jalen Hurts was placed on injured reserve because of blood clots. Dallas had already surprised plenty of people by naming Sam Howell the backup quarterback, and the decision only looked more curious given how Milton performed in the summer and preseason.
He put together a strong August in Oxnard, then backed it up in games. Milton completed 29 of 43 passes for 378 yards and three touchdowns without a turnover. He averaged 8.8 yards per attempt, didn’t record a turnover-worthy play, and finished with a passer rating of 118.2, second only to the Bears’ Tyson Bagent.
On paper, that looked like enough to win the QB2 job. It wasn’t.
That suggests the Cowboys’ staff wanted more from him behind the scenes than they saw in preseason action. And in the NFL, what happens in practice can matter more than what a quarterback does against backups and simplified coverages.
Even so, Dallas seemed to be playing with fire by leaving him exposed. Most roster projections had the Cowboys carrying three quarterbacks, and when Milton cleared waivers, it looked like they had dodged the worst-case scenario. But keeping him on the practice squad always carried risk because of the arm talent and upside that made him worth developing in the first place.
The Cowboys may have believed Sam Howell gave them a safer option if Dak Prescott were to miss time, and they clearly weren’t ready to hand Milton a bigger role. Still, this was only Year 2 of the Milton project, and Dallas had to know it was dealing with a developmental quarterback who needed time. He had already made progress from his first year in Dallas, which is what makes the decision to let him sit on the practice squad look even stranger now.
Maybe the Eagles get a short burst out of him. Maybe Milton plays well enough to stick and even work his way into an extension.
Or maybe he struggles and loses the job before December. But if he does hit in Philadelphia, the Cowboys will have another mess on their hands in a season already defined by bad coaching, shaky personnel choices, and losses that keep getting harder to explain.
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