May 08, 2026
Eric Hartline/Imagn Images
The Eagles have good QBs but also of the NFL's more odd depth charts at that position.
The typical stockpile of quarterbacks for the Eagles is one reason they've deservedly earned the nickname "QB Factory."
But while there's a nice blend of star power, experience and developmental youth in Jalen Hurts, Tanner McKee, Andy Dalton and rookie Cole Payton, there's also a pecking order that, frankly, doesn't make any sense.
Rare in the NFL is a QB depth chart in which the third-stringer has more games played and as many Pro Bowl appearances than the combined total of the starter and backup.
That's what the Eagles currently have, with Hurts backed up by McKee, who enters his fourth year and the final season of his contract having played just 178 career snaps, followed by Dalton, a 15-year veteran who has thrown more than 5,600 career passes.
NFL practices, with league-mandated time and contact limitations, are designed to get starters ready for the game. Backups get very few, if any, reps during the week. That includes quarterbacks.
Third-stringers? They usually run the scout team.
Is the 38-year-old Dalton really comfortable giving "looks" for the first team all season and being inactive on game day? Most QBs of his age and pedigree are looking to go somewhere they can be the unquestioned No. 2 and perhaps have a Nick Foles moment if their team is good enough to be a postseason contender.
Likewise, is the best thing for Payton's development to have no spot whatsoever on any string during practice? If he's not running the scout team, Payton's development all year can only come in the post-practice developmental periods and maybe in the hours leading up to games at the Linc with his position coaches.
Dalton hasn't yet spoken to Philly media since being traded to the Eagles from the Panthers, but it's hard to believe he would really be OK with being a weekly inactive at this stage of his career.
Sure, he's under contract. But the former Bengals nine-year starter has made plenty of cash in his long career. The Eagles are his sixth team, fifth in the past seven seasons. A few million owed him this year isn't going to sway him or one way or another.
One reason the Eagles acquired Dalton was for insurance if they traded McKee, who has drawn interest. But the main part of free agency and the NFL Draft have come and gone, and McKee hasn't been moved.
But the Eagles aren't trying to give McKee away. He's a promising prospect who has value both as a backup who the team believes can step in and win games if Hurts suffers an injury, and as a potential trade deadline asset.
Even if McKee stayed all season and departed in free agency, his next contract would help the Eagles in the comp pick formula that they strategize so much.
In 2021, the Eagles had three capable QBs when they traded for Gardner Minshew after already signing veteran Joe Flacco to back up Hurts. Flacco opened the season as Hurts' backup and Minshew was inactive for the first seven weeks until the Eagles did Flacco a solid by trading him to the QB-needy Jets, which promoted Minshew to the backup role.
Maybe there's already an agreement in place between the Eagles and Dalton (or his camp) that the team will either trade McKee by the deadline or trade Dalton if they can't move McKee.
That would really be the only way the depth chart could make sense.
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