1 last-minute trade Eagles must make before Week 1 of 2026 NFL season

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As things presently stand, the Philadelphia Eagles have no clear hierarchy at the quarterback position.

Yes, the top and bottom of the roster are more or less set, with Jalen Hurts locked in as the long-term starter under center and 2026 sixth-round pick Cole Payton a very interesting emergency option as the QB3, but between them, Philadelphia has two very different players at very different points in their careers but no true answer for 2026 at QB2, let alone the future.

In one corner is Andy Dalton, the 38-year-old pass slinger who most recently played for the Carolina Panthers. Initially drafted by the Cincinnati Bengals all the way back in the second round of the 2011 NFL Draft out of TCU, Dalton has appeared in 183 games with 173 starts, holding things down for nine years in The Jungle before spending the next six years as a backup for everyone from Dak Prescott to Justin Fields, Derek Carr, and Bryce Young. Dalton has completed 3,539 passes for 39,792 yards and 254 touchdowns over his career but hasn’t won more than a game since 2022, with his last winning season coming all the way back in 2015.

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And in the other? Tanner McKee, the Eagles’ 2023 sixth-round pick who has slowly but surely worked his way up Philadelphia’s depth chart. A 26-year-old heading into his fourth professional season after an LDS mission extended his college career, McKee has only appeared in six NFL games, but in the two he’s started, he looked like a certified pro, throwing for 597 yards on 53 completions with a 5-to-1 touchdown-to-interception ratio overall. While McKee doesn’t have the mobility evaluators look for in a modern-day starting quarterback, he’s huge at 6-foot-6, 231 pounds, and has a cannon for an arm, as his “Mormon Missile” nickname would suggest.

After some initially believed that McKee and Dalton could produce one of the better competitions of the summer, with the former working his way out of town as the latter took on the QB2 moniker for the 2026 season, so far, neither has really looked incredible in Sean Mannion’s offense, to the point where only Payton could really move the ball effectively against the Baltimore Ravens’ reserve defense in the preseason debut.

Will McKee or Dalton get their game back on track and run away with the role? Will the Eagles ultimately decide to hold onto McKee for now and pick up whatever compensatory selection he generates in 2028, knowing that any injury to Hurts could derail their Super Bowl aspirations with Dalton on the field? Or is there a world where Dalton figures it out, and Howie Roseman feels comfortable moving on from McKee for whatever he’s worth, knowing his value won’t increase with more ineffective preseason performances or a season on the bench?

At this point, it’s anyone’s guess, but much like in 2025, when it looked like the Eagles weren’t quite right at the quarterback spot before acquiring Sam Howell, Roseman could swoop in, work his magic, and make a deal for another passer with more than one year of team control, making McKee and Dalton no longer necessary on the final 53-man roster. While there have been no major injuries to shake up the quarterback landscape around the NFL thus far, there are a few interesting arms who could be on the move before Week 1, including one who has experience playing for an old Eagles coordinator who actually won a Super Bowl as a member of Nick Sirianni’s coaching staff.

With no fierce market for quarterbacks in the dog days of August, there isn’t much incentive for Roseman to trade McKee right now. Sure, some team could bang down the doors at Jefferson Health Training Complex and offer a deal that’s too good to be true for McKee now, but that would leave the Eagles with just Dalton and Payton behind Hurts, neither of whom has shown they can cleanly run Mannion’s offense when it matters thus far.

And yet, the only avenue at the Eagles’ disposal to move McKee isn’t to sell high on him now for a pick in the future but instead by parting with his contract in a deal that brings back another player, specifically a quarterback with more than one year of team control.

Fortunately, there is a player who fits that bill and actually played for a former Eagles coordinator who had success with McKee under center in the past, making a swap all the more interesting for both teams: Spencer Rattler.

A former Oklahoma product who came to fame in high school on QB1: Beyond the Light, Rattler played his college ball for Lincoln Riley just like Hurts before finishing his career at South Carolina, where he parlayed his play into a fifth-round selection by the Saints in 2024. Like Hurts, Rattler is small, standing 6-foot, 221 pounds, but the 25-year-old is battle-tested at the NFL level, appearing in 16 games with 14 starts over the past two years.

Has Rattler been successful in New Orleans? In terms of wins and losses, no, he only has one win over his 13 NFL appearances, but Rattler has been able to move the ball with both his arms and his legs, completing 304 of his 485 passing attempts for 2,903 yards and 12 touchdowns versus 10 interceptions, plus 313 more rushing yards on the ground. Rattler held off Tyler Shough for half of his rookie season, and while the Saints played much better with the Louisville product on the field, that doesn’t mean there wasn’t tape to like from his second-year teammate.

Fast forward to 2026, and Rattler is still a member of the Saints but is no longer guaranteed to slide into that QB2 role, with Zach Wilson outplaying him during the preseason against the Jacksonville Jaguars. Suddenly, Rattler might not be a guarantee to even make the 53-man roster, especially if the Saints can secure another quarterback with a proven track record of success in Kellen Moore’s offense.

Could McKee be that quarterback? In a word, yes.

For better or worse, McKee likely won’t be back in Philadelphia in 2027. If he plays very well, another team could swoop in and sign him to a 10-figure contract. If the Eagles keep him around and an injury comes up for another team, McKee could be traded mid-season just like in 2021, when Roseman shipped Joe Flacco to the New York Jets for a conditional sixth-round pick. And if McKee enters free agency with just two starts after a full season of inactivity? Well, he would likely still sign with another team that doesn’t have a franchise quarterback under center regardless, affording himself a chance to at least compete for a starting spot.

Rattler, on the other hand, will still be on his rookie contract in 2027 unless he is waived and goes unclaimed, giving the Eagles another young, cheap quarterback behind Hurts as Payton continues to develop into a true QB2 for as soon as 2028.

Would the Saints be willing to do a one-for-one swap of McKee and Rattler? Would one team request a pick to sweeten the pot, or would New Orleans rather simply keep Rattler and build him up instead of rolling the dice on McKee this late in the game? Considering Shough is signed to a second-round rookie contract for the next two years after 2026, the Saints could pay McKee handsomely to serve as Shough’s backup, allowing them to develop a pair of young quarterbacks and have a backup plan if their young passer game falls off over the next three seasons.

And for the Eagles? Well, they would get a more experienced quarterback who plays a bit more like Hurts and has an extra year of team control, which better fits into Philadelphia’s complex cap situation over the next two seasons.

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