The Eagles acquiring Andy Dalton might have less to do with Tanner McKee and more with Jalen Hurts
Dalton's presence might make McKee more expendable, sure. It might also be part of an effort to put more experienced quarterbacking minds around Hurts.
It was the easiest of initial reactions when the Eagles last week traded a 2027 seventh-round pick to Carolina for veteran quarterback Andy Dalton.
Dalton in, Tanner McKee out.
It could pan out that way. With Dalton in line behind Jalen Hurts and the opportunity to draft another Day 3 prospect, similar to what they did with McKee, on the horizon, the Eagles could flip McKee for some draft capital before he enters the final year of his rookie contract with the team.
Trading for Dalton opened that door a little more. But whether or not the Eagles find a trade partner for McKee might be less significant than what acquiring Dalton means for Hurts and the Eagles’ offseason offensive reconstruction.
Hurts is coming off a season that featured his lowest completion percentage since 2021, his first year as a starter. After winning Super Bowl MVP, Hurts saw drop-offs in his quarterback rating and his average yards per completion while he was less impactful as a runner than he ever has been.
It is no surprise, then, that the Eagles focused their offensive rebuild on surrounding Hurts with more quarterback experience than he had in 2024, and possibly at any point in his NFL career.
Kevin Patullo had some playing experience at quarterback and wide receiver, and his coaching experience prior to becoming the Eagles’ offensive coordinator last year dabbled in both. Scot Loeffler, Hurts’ position coach in 2024, is a longtime quarterbacks coach, but had just one year of NFL coaching experience before joining the Eagles. In the room with Hurts was McKee, in his third season in the NFL and first as a primary backup, and Sam Howell, who had one year of starting experience.
The prior season featured an offensive coaching staff led by coordinator Kellen Moore, a quarterback, and quarterbacks coach Doug Nussmeier, who played the position in college and the NFL, and coached it in multiple prior college and NFL stops before Philadelphia. The depth chart at quarterback was Hurts, Kenny Pickett, who was a two-year starter with the Steelers, and McKee.
Hurts, who has run out of fingers counting the different play-callers he’s had since entering college, had his most productive season as a passer in 2022. That season, former quarterback Shane Steichen was his coordinator and Brian Johnson, who was the offensive player of the year in the Mountain West in 2008 while playing quarterback at Utah, was his position coach. The Eagles had Gardner Minshew as Hurts’ backup that season and, in 2021, under the same coaching staff, had Joe Flacco in Hurts’ ear for his first year taking the reins.
The 2026 staff and Dalton’s inclusion on the depth chart harken back to seasons prior to 2025.
Mannion, the all-time passing leader in Oregon State history, might be a first-time coordinator and play-caller, but Nick Sirianni thinks he will be able to help Hurts bounce back. The Eagles will run a new scheme, but they’re also more quarterback-focused than they were last season. Mannion was in the NFL for eight seasons and last year, as Green Bay’s quarterbacks coach, helped Jordan Love have his most efficient season as a passer.
“We’ll have a quarterbacks coach with him,” Sirianni said of Mannion, “but they kind of work hand-in-hand. There’s a lot of things with how [Mannion] looks at it, and how he looks at the lens is through a quarterback’s lens and how he can help him play his best football.”
That quarterbacks coach is Parks Frazier, who was on the staff under Patullo last season as the pass game coordinator. Sirianni said he liked that Frazier, who played some quarterback at Murray State, spent a season working under Mike McDaniel in Miami coaching in a scheme that will show up in what the Eagles’ offense eventually looks like. Sirianni also thinks Frazier will be “a bridge” who will help “translate” some of last year’s verbiage to the new staff.
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Sirianni, once a quarterbacks coach with the Chargers, also brought in Jerrod Johnson as a senior offensive assistant. Johnson was a multiyear starting quarterback at Texas A&M before bouncing around as a pro. He was C.J. Stroud’s quarterbacks coach in Houston before joining the Eagles’ staff. And for the first time under Sirianni, the Eagles have an assistant quarterbacks coach, Montgomery VanGorder. VanGorder was a champion high school quarterback who primarily was on the scout team at Notre Dame before becoming a coach. He assisted with quarterbacks at Georgia, where he won a national title, before joining the Eagles as a quality control assistant last year.
Between Mannion, Frazier, Johnson, VanGorder, and, yes, Dalton, the Eagles have never surrounded Hurts with more quarterbacking experience.
Dalton, a three-time Pro Bowler who has transitioned into a backup role late in his career, mentored Bryce Young with the Panthers over the last few seasons and helped him break out in 2025. It is insulting to suggest Hurts needs that kind of mentorship. He is a veteran quarterback with a better winning percentage than Dalton’s and a Super Bowl ring.
But it’s not insulting to suggest Dalton will be an asset to Hurts, Mannion, and the Eagles, and it’s probably more useful to view his acquisition through that lens rather than what it means for the Eagles’ ability to acquire a late-round pick for McKee.