Howie Roseman explains why trading for Sam Howell was ‘in the best interest’ of the 2025 Eagles
“We just thought it was an opportunity to improve in the short term the quarterback position, which is obviously a hugely important position,” Roseman said Tuesday at the NovaCare Complex.
Howie Roseman estimated Tuesday that the only Thursday night college football game he has attended over the last decade was a matchup on Nov. 12, 2021 between Pittsburgh and visiting North Carolina.
It was a 30-23 overtime thriller won by Pitt, and a quarterback showdown involving Pitt’s Kenny Pickett and UNC’s Sam Howell. The irony there, Roseman said, was that both quarterbacks found their way to Philadelphia as pros.
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It was a roundabout way of Roseman explaining that the Eagles know Howell, the quarterback they traded for Sunday, “really well.” Howell completed 22 of 33 pass attempts and threw for 296 yards with two touchdowns and an interception that night. The Eagles followed him closely, studied him ahead of the 2022 draft, and then watched him up close again during his two starts with the Washington Commanders against the Eagles during the 2023 season.
The Eagles sent a 2026 fifth-round pick and a 2027 seventh-rounder to the Minnesota Vikings in exchange for the soon-to-be-25-year-old quarterback and a 2026 sixth-round pick. Howell didn’t impress much during his first training camp in Minnesota, and the Eagles are his fourth NFL franchise in four years. But he is an upgrade at the No. 3 spot.
The context at the time of the trade was that the Eagles weren’t thoroughly impressed with rookie Kyle McCord and needed some insurance for backup quarterback Tanner McKee, who is nursing a right finger injury and may not be ready for the opener next Thursday. But Roseman said Tuesday, after the Eagles finalized their initial 53-man roster, that the team would have made the move even if McKee was healthy.
“We just thought it was an opportunity to improve in the short term the quarterback position, which is obviously a hugely important position,” Roseman said. “For us, having those three guys as we start the season, with the experience they have in that room, we felt like it was in the best interest of the team for this season.”
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There was a balancing act the Eagles were navigating, Roseman said, between development and putting the best product on the field as they worked to get their initial roster together.
McCord did not look NFL-ready in his limited work in training camp. He worked mostly with the third-team offense and split reps with Dorian Thompson-Robinson throughout camp.
His first extended look came in the team’s second preseason game, when he completed just eight of 16 passes for only 47 yards as the Eagles’ backup offensive line struggled. Then, during Friday’s preseason finale, McCord went 15-for-35 for 136 yards. There were some good moments, but not enough, and the lowlight came when he threw an interception on a deep ball into double coverage.
“The hardest part for us is trying to balance the development of young players who we like and doing whatever we can to go out and defend our title and put the best team forward here for Dallas and going forward,” Roseman said.
“I think everything we were doing were those parallel paths and trying to figure out where we can get away with developing some guys we think that can help us in the future and where we can help the team in the short term and make sure we were covered.
“In this instance, just felt like Sam had a lot of value for our team right now. That doesn’t say we don’t like our young quarterbacks who were here and we don’t have great hope and promise for those guys. We’ll just see what happens in the next 24 hours.”
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Roseman, of course, was referring to the Eagles hoping to bring McCord, a Mount Laurel native, back on their practice squad. The sixth-round pick, one of two 2025 draft picks waived by the Eagles (edge rusher and fellow sixth-rounder Antwaun Powell-Ryland being the other), will have to pass through waivers without being claimed to end up on the Eagles’ 17-man practice unit.
“I think he did some good things and promising things through camp,” Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said of McCord. “Obviously, we liked him enough to draft him to this football team.”