Roster Thoughts: Howie Roseman Followed Through On Promise With Eagles 4 QBs

Four quarterbacks after a summer of little exciting play at the position sounds like overkill.

Jul 30, 2026; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Philadelphia Eagles offensive coordinator Sean Mannion and quarterbacks Jalen Hurts (1) and Andy Dalton (14) and Cole Payton (10) and Tanner McKee (16) during training camp at Jefferson Health Training Complex. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

PHILADELPHIA — Four quarterbacks after a summer of little exciting play at the position sounds like overkill. 

Give general manager Howie Roseman credit, though, for following through on a promise he made in the spring.

“We talked about it: We’re open to carrying four quarterbacks, for sure,” Roseman said after drafting Cole Payton in the fifth round in April. “If you talk about it being the most important position in sports and you have four good ones, why wouldn’t you keep them?”

The summer offered a valid retort to that rhetorical question. Maybe the Eagles don’t have four good ones. 

A growing number of observers are wondering whether they even have two. You can bank on Payton’s developmental upside if you like. The battle between veteran Andy Dalton and Tanner McKee, however, was defined by handing the baton back to the other the minute momentum started to build. 

Neither seized the job. Neither looked like a reliable insurance policy if Jalen Hurts went down.

Keeping all four smacks of Roseman leaving an iron in the fire and calling the bluff of peers who likely chuckled at the thought of rostering the Feckless Foursome. 

Other teams kept four quarterbacks, too. That does not make the math any cleaner in Philadelphia.

Hurts had his own struggles while shifting toward a Kyle Shanahan/Sean McVay-style attack under new offensive coordinator Sean Mannion. Even so, in this quarterback room the Eagles starter might as well be Otto Graham. 

The gap between Hurts and everyone behind him remains the most honest evaluation the preseason produced.

On a day when former Eagles practice-squad quarterback Kyle McCord earned the right to be a backup in Miami, and Minnesota stayed in the J.J. McCarthy business, the idea that anyone is getting desperate for Dalton or McKee in the next 24 to 48 hours looks thin. 

Inflated Value?

Aug 22, 2026; Foxborough, Massachusetts, USA; Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Andy Dalton (14), quarterback Cole Payton (10), and quarterback Tanner McKee (16) run onto the field before the game against the New England Patriots at Gillette Stadium. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Trade value that existed on paper in April did not survive August.

Back in the spring, Roseman described keeping four as “no different than we keep 11 offensive linemen, or an extra defensive lineman. For us, if we weren’t going to take [Cole Payton] just because of what we have at the position right now, it didn’t seem to make sense. It’s not consistent with our philosophy.”

Unfortunately, Dalton and McKee derailed that philosophy by failing to prove worthy of the so-called Quarterback Factory. 

The hope that Roseman was playing chess — upgrading the seventh-round pick he gave up for Dalton, or landing a Day 2 pick for McKee — dissipated in plain sight.

Luckily, the initial 53-man roster will not be the one that takes the field against Washington on Sept. 13. 

Tweaks are coming. 

That sends the conversation back to Roseman’s question. The Eagles simply do not have “four good ones” at quarterback, and that changed the math.

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