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- Mar 19, 2019
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Well, it looks like unretired quarterback Josh McCown won’t be a short-time member of the Eagles.
McCown’s one-year deal pays him $2 million fully guaranteed at signing and up to $5.4 million for the season, according to for-now-former colleague Adam Schefter of ESPN.
This makes McCown much more than a camp arm or a temporary preseason rep-taker. It likely puts him at No. 2 on the depth chart, indefinitely. Current backup Nate Sudfeld has a broken wrist that won’t heal until after the regular season begins.
Coach Doug Pederson has said that Sudfeld has done enough to be the No. 2 quarterback, but that was before McCown’s arrival.
It’s a valuable position for any quarterback, given Carson Wentz‘s propensity to play with the kind of reckless abandon that results in various portions of the human body breaking or tearing. Nick Foles received opportunities in consecutive Decembers to take over, leading the Eagles to a Super Bowl win in 2017 and nearly to a final-four appearance in 2018.
The addition of McCown also raises significant questions about whether Sudfeld will even be on the opening-day roster. With Wentz, McCown, Sudfeld, Cody Kesller, and rookie fifth-rounder Thornton Melon Clayton Thorson, Kessler and Sudfeld or Thorson will be the odd men out — unless the Eagles plan to carry four quarterbacks on the active roster.
The Eagles could cut Sudfeld or Thorson and hope that whoever gets the short straw passes through waivers before trying to sign him to the practice squad. But there will be a risk of permanently losing whoever ends up off the first official 53-man roster, which will be set two weeks from today.