Eagles turn to Joe Milton, the first of two QB auditions they must stage to make the most of 2026
Milton, with physical upside Tanner McKee lacks, will start for Eagles vs. the Giants. Cole Payton should be next.
In a league that is as short on quarterbacks and as long on hopeless teams as the NFL currently is, it is hard to believe that a player with Joe Milton’s physical tools was available to be signed off a practice squad six weeks into the season. And, hey, maybe that tells us all we need to know.
The Eagles’ decision to start the chiseled 6-foot-5, 240-pound 25-year-old against the Giants is a no-brainer. At worst, it will be a prelude to the main event, when we finally get a look at uber-intriguing fifth-round rookie Cole Payton. Whatever the case, the Eagles had little to gain by continuing to feed Tanner McKee to the wolves. Three starts has been more than enough to render a definitive judgment on who the 26-year-old is.
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That’s not a knock on McKee as much as it is an acknowledgment of how the Eagles should be approaching the final nine games of a lost season. Whatever your evaluation of McKee’s performance, he hasn’t been good enough to prevent 2-3 from becoming 2-6. The Eagles still have two more months of football to play. That’s an awfully long time for players to show up to work for a team that has little in the way of purpose. At the very least, Milton should inject the team and its coaching staff with a sense that things might turn out differently this time around.
Milton has plenty of physical talent to go with his prototypical proportions. A sixth-round pick of the Patriots in 2024 after an impressive senior season at Tennessee, the 26-year-old showed enough on tape as a rookie that the Cowboys traded a fifth-round pick for him in April of 2025. He saw extended action in the Patriots’ 2024 season finale against the Bills, throwing for 241 yards on 22-of-29 passing with one touchdown and no interceptions in a 23-16 win. With the Cowboys, he appeared in a handful of games in mop-up duty last season, then landed on the practice squad to begin 2026.
That trajectory suggests some caution is in order regarding any expectations for Milton. The Cowboys could have promoted him to their active roster. The Patriots could have retained him in the first place. The most likely outcome is not that Milton plays well enough to enter the offseason as the Eagles’ presumptive QB2 for 2027. But it is at least a potential outcome, which is more than you can say for McKee.
The top-line numbers say that McKee hasn’t been awful, although you do have to squint a bit. He has thrown for more yards (212.7 per game) with a higher completion percentage (63.2%) than Jalen Hurts did in his five starts. His quarterback rating (76.6), sack percentage (8.06) and yards-per-attempt (5.6) are all reasonably close to Hurts, especially when you factor in the absences of No. 1 wide receiver DeVonta Smith and right tackle Lane Johnson.
That’s mostly a testament to the limits of top-line numbers in capturing quarterback performance. McKee’s first two starts came against defenses that allowed 43 and 33 points the week after they faced the Eagles. Former Eagles backup Gardner Minshew just led the Cardinals to 467 yards of offense against the Cowboys. The Panthers have allowed 70 points and 676 yards of offense in losses to the Bucs and the Panthers. With McKee at center, the Eagles managed just 14 points and 222 yards against Carolina and 21 points and 321 yards against the Cowboys. The 10 points they scored against the Commanders last week were 14 fewer than any team had scored against Washington in its first six games.
That’s not all on McKee. In different circumstances, it would make plenty of sense to stick with him. The Bucs have won two straight games by a combined score of 59-13 with their quarterback attempting 14 passes combined. If the Eagles were capable of rushing for 682 yards and holding an opponent to 13 points in a two-game stretch, McKee would look just fine.
But, then, the circumstances are the thing. McKee will be a free agent after this season. Even if the Eagles would consider bringing him back to back up Hurts, he presumably will be looking for a team that can offer him more of an opportunity. In any event, they already know who he is. With Milton, there is at least some question. Same goes for Payton.
The one criticism you might make of the decision to start Milton is that it wasn’t a decision to start Payton. The beefy dual threat lefty has lingered on the active roster all season after the Eagles selected him at No. 178 overall out of North Dakota State. Milton will now be the fourth quarterback who has been ahead of him on the depth chart, after Hurts, McKee and veteran Andy Dalton.
It’s a good bet that Payton will get his chance at some point. For now, it makes sense to go in this order. If Milton sets the world on fire, great. House money. If he doesn’t, the Eagles will at least buy another handful of weeks before they can again switch things up and inject a sense of the new.
These are the considerations they must prioritize now. The only good that can come from 2026 is whatever helps them in 2027 and beyond. Milton and Payton at least offer them that, however marginal the likely payoff.
The Eagles have problems. Eight games into the season, that much is sure. But which ones are symptomatic, versus the ones that are systemic? From the head coach to the personnel, from coordinators to the front office, The Inquirer’s Jeff McLane and David Murphy scrutinize the micro issues that point to some of the larger dilemmas the Eagles now face: should they start to pack it in, and who will be held accountable for the team’s shortcomings? Listen here.
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