“I walk a lonely road…it’s the only one that I’ve ever known.” The music pours out of an old pair of wired earbuds. Wearing them is Tanner McKee. The quarterback sits by his locker after a long practice, contemplating his recent struggles. The weight of Philadelphia rests on his back like a boulder. The pressure of the city is palpable. “I walk this empty street…on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams.” A hand pats him on his shoulder and Tanner turns, removing an earbud from one ear. The hand belongs to Nick Sirianni, Tanner’s beloved coach, who, despite all the struggles, has never left his side (okay, maybe once or twice, but not many times). Sirianni’s tired, sunken eyes say more than his words ever could. “Tanner, we’re going in a different direction,” Sirianni says, avoiding eye contact. Tanner puts his earbud back in and turns the song to full volume.
Alright, maybe it didn’t happen exactly like that, but I’m pretty sure Green Day’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” will pop up somewhere on Tanner McKee’s Spotify Wrapped next month. Two days after Nick Sirianni said that he wouldn’t make a change at QB, the Eagles announced that Joe Milton would be starting at quarterback against the New York Giants on Sunday.
Who’s Joe Milton you may ask? The third-year quarterback was drafted by the Patriots in 2024, before playing for the Cowboys in 2025 and signing with the Eagles since your last trip to Costco. Fun fact: Joe Milton’s middle name is Jay, so this is the first matchup of two quarterbacks named J.J. who started the season on a team that’s different than the one they play for now (don’t double-check that; just trust me).
The last time the Eagles benched a quarterback in-season was when a young Heisman-Trophy-finalist and star-in-the-making named Jalen Hurts stepped in for Carson Wentz in 2020 (we miss you, King). With our boy Tanner McKee playing less like A.J. Feeley and more like Mark Sanchez, the Birds are hoping that Joey Milts can step in and put some duct tape on an offense that’s been as effective as trying to cook a steak with a notebook. McKee’s play this past month has been brutal, but Tanner Touchdown is far from the only reason this struggling offense is getting worse.
Like a bad NBA team that shoots a lot of three-pointers, the Birds are leaning into the high variance option and hoping that the wild card of Joe Milton can introduce enough chaos to give this offense a shot. It’s like that Family Guy bit about choosing a boat or a mystery box, because who knows the mystery box could even be a boat. That’s pretty much Joe Milton. Right about now you might be asking yourself, “whoa slow down, tell me more about this guy.”
Mighty Morphin Power Milton had an up-and-down college career. He played 3 years at Michigan before transferring to Tennessee, where he spent 3 seasons with the Vols. In 2022, he was thrust into the starting QB role after incumbent starter Hendon Hooker went down. Milton took over and led the Vols to the Orange Bowl, where he won MVP honors in a victory over #7 Clemson. In 2023, as a full-time starter, Milton led the Vols to a 9-4 record, which is not great, but he did have a really cool 81-yard touchdown run against UTSA, which is the longest touchdown run by a quarterback in school history.
Tennessee has a complicated history with quarterbacks, the most successful being Peyton Manning and the least being Nathan Peterman (which I mention for no specific reason). The veer-and-shoot spread offense Milton ran under Josh Heupel doesn’t ask much of the quarterback aside from running fast and throwing far. So the transition to the pros is tough sledding for most of their quarterback prospects.
Milton was drafted by the Pats in the 6th round in 2024 and started the only game of his career in a Week 18 win against the Buffalo Bills where he went 22/29 for 241 yards, 1 passing TD and 1 rushing TD. He also made this ridiculous pass which I am legally obligated to mention.
In April 2025, he was traded to Dallas along with a 7th-round pick for a 5th-round pick, and backed up Dak Prescott last season. He relieved Dak in 4 games (all blowouts) and went 15/22 for 183 yards with 1 TD, 2 INTs, 5 rushes for 50 yards and a fumble. Milton had an impressive preseason, including a 3-touchdown performance against the Cardinals. But after losing a quarterback competition to our old friend and not-very-great quarterback Sam Howell this past offseason, the Cowboys waived Milton and the Eagles scooped him up.
Let’s start with the positive. Joey Milts is like a player you’d build in a video game. He runs a 4.62 40 (fast) and throws the ball 60 mph (an appropriate speed to drive your car on I-95 and how fast I feel like I’m running when I jog downhill). In summary, he’s fast and throws the ball really hard. He’d throw a pigskin through the moon if you dared him to. His player comp is Mega Man. Or a rocket launcher. Or a Fast and the Furious movie. A lot of flash, not a ton of substance. But he’s still young (kind of).
As for the negatives, Milton received this pre-draft assessment from NFL.com’s Lance Zirlein:
Rare physical specimen with the proverbial “arm talent to make all the NFL throws,” but he’s prevented from doing so by a lack of timing, accuracy and touch. Milton is gifted with a cannon for a right arm and can throw the ball as hard or as far as you want. His fastballs are often inaccurate and difficult to catch for moving targets, and he was wildly inconsistent locating his deep throws.
Zirlein also said this, which I include because it’s a hilarious way to say he’s not an accurate deep ball passer:
Disturbing lack of placement and timing as a deep-ball passer.
Milton is an alluring yet complicated prospect, kind of like a beautiful Lamborghini with a state-of-the-art engine but no steering wheel. For all of his physical tools, Milton is inaccurate, makes questionable decisions, throws the ball too hard sometimes, and is still developing beyond a one-read type of player. He can very much make something out of nothing but also very often makes nothing out of something.
That said, this preseason, reports noted Milton’s improved footwork, presence, and command of the Cowboys’ offense, all of which markedly improved his accuracy. So Joe 2.0 might have some juice to him. But if Jalen Hurts, Andy Dalton, and Tanner McKee struggled in this offense after learning it all offseason, I don’t know if Joe will do any better.
After spending the first half of the season trying to solve problems like a man who’s trying to win a game of Scrabble but can’t spell, the Birds finally push the “fuck it” button. Back in 2020, when questioned about drafting Jalen Hurts with incumbent quarterback Carson Wentz playing on a shiny new contract, Howie Roseman uttered these infamous words:
“For better or worse, we are quarterback developers,” Roseman said. “We want to be a quarterback factory. We have the right people in place to do that. No team in the National Football League has benefitted more from developing quarterbacks than the Philadelphia Eagles.”
After years of turning out solid backup quarterback play, the quarterback factory seems like it’s closed down until further notice. Getting to this point is a result of the Eagles holding onto 4 quarterbacks heading into the season (none of whom will play this Sunday), building an offense that has yet to elevate its players, and failing to develop Tanner McKee into a viable backup quarterback and instead kind of making him way worse. Remember when we traded for Andy Dalton? That wasn’t great!
Now McKee’s trade value has tanked and the only means of evaluating Mannion’s offense is by putting a bazooka at quarterback and hoping it hits the right thing every now and then. We are at a strange point in Eagles football where a million things have unraveled this team in such a short span of time. But maybe Bazooka Joe can help us pick up the pieces and elevate this team. Or…maybe not. But things can’t get much worse so why not see what happens?
It’s Milton time baby. Will it be good? Probably not. But will it be fun? Um…I don’t know.