Andy Dalton’s short stay in Philadelphia is over, and the move that brought him there now looks even stranger in hindsight. The Eagles shipped out a seventh-round pick for the veteran quarterback only seven months ago, then cut him before he could even board the plane to London for Week 5.
General manager Howie Roseman eventually made the call, but the logic behind the trade was shaky from the start. Philadelphia already had Tanner McKee in the room, and the team also knew it was going to add another quarterback in the draft after Kyle McCord, the QB the Eagles took in the 2025 draft, fled to Green Bay and then was traded to the Miami, where he serves as the backup to Malik Willis on the still-winless Dolphins.
Roseman did add one, selecting Cole Payton in the fifth round. Even then, the setup only got messier.
The Eagles let Dalton and McKee compete for the backup job, and McKee handled it the right way. He’s in the final year of his contract, but he stayed professional about the whole thing, saying that every year you have to compete for your job.
That competition lingered all summer. Head coach Nick Sirianni never put the issue to bed, even after the 53-man roster was finalized. The team didn’t name a No. 2 quarterback until the morning of the season opener, leaving the backup situation hanging over camp and into the season.
Keeping four quarterbacks on the 53-man roster was odd enough on its own. It meant the Eagles moved on from players such as Cam Latu and Cameron Williams, along with others who looked likelier to help this roster than Dalton.
Part of the hesitation seemed to come from the team’s concern about losing Payton if they tried to sneak him onto the practice squad.
Dalton’s career résumé dwarfed McKee’s. He had appeared in 179 games with 169 starts across 15 seasons, and Philadelphia was the sixth stop of his NFL journey. But his lone pass in an Eagles uniform was a forgettable one, intercepted in the end zone by a Bears rookie safety.
McKee, by contrast, was drafted by the Eagles and had already given them more to work with. A sixth-round pick in 2023, he made two starts and went 1-1. In six games, he threw five touchdown passes and only one interception.
That’s why the whole thing felt so unnecessary. The Eagles could have simply kept McKee in place and held onto the seventh-round pick they spent to bring Dalton in.
Neither quarterback impressed much this summer, and now the depth chart is thin enough that Payton is one injury to Jalen Hurts and another to McKee away from becoming a starter. Given how this season has already gone, with key players dropping one after another, that no longer sounds far-fetched.
Even so, the Dalton move still stands out as the wrong one. And Roseman, finally, seemed to acknowledge it after four weeks of the regular season.
In Other News...
Eagles Fans Would Have Strong Feelings About This Jalen Hurts Trade Idea
With Aaron Rodgers planning to retire after the 2026 season, the Steelers are being viewed as a team that will eventually need a long-term answer at quarterback, and that has opened the door to some outside speculation about what Pittsburgh might do next. One hypothetical proposal has Philadelphia involved in a future deal centered on Jalen Hurts, a name that instantly gets attention in any Eagles conversation because of what he means to the team and the way the position shapes everything around it.
The idea is simply a thought exercise at this point, not a move with any traction behind it, but it still lands with the kind of force that makes Eagles fans bristle. Hurts is too central to Philadelphias present and future to be treated lightly in trade chatter, which is why even an offseason-style hypothetical can spark a real reaction long before there is anything concrete to debate. [Read more 🡒]
Eagles Offense Faces Early Pressure In A Game Fans Can't Ignore
After a frustrating trip to London, the Eagles return home for a Week 6 matchup with the Carolina Panthers in a spot that already feels easy to measure by how their offense responds. Philadelphia is still a 1.5-point home favorite, but there is little cushion in the way the game is being framed: the Eagles have had trouble finding rhythm on offense, injuries are part of the conversation, and the pressure is building for a group that needs a cleaner performance in front of its own crowd.
Carolina does not arrive as a simple bounce-back opponent either. Bryce Young has the Panthers passing game moving at a level that has caught attention around the league, and the extra rest from last weeks bye only adds to the challenge for Philadelphia. For an Eagles team trying to steady itself after the London loss, this is the kind of home game that can either reset the narrative or deepen the concerns. [Read more 🡒]
Eagles Let An Upset Slip Away In Brutal Final Seconds
A wild afternoon in Jacksonville turned on the kind of late-game sequence that can sting a locker room for days. Philadelphia had done enough to survive plenty of self-inflicted trouble and still walk away with a chance to steal a road win, which made the closing moments all the more frustrating for a team trying to stay in the thick of the early-season picture.
The Eagles were on the edge of escaping with a hard-earned result when the final possession flipped the script in dramatic fashion. Jacksonville answered the pressure with a burst in the return game, setting up the kind of long field goal attempt that can erase all the noise from the previous three hours and leave Philadelphia with a loss it will be thinking about for a while. [Read more 🡒]