Philadelphia Eagles: Andy Dalton doesn’t pose a threat
The Dallas Cowboys have a new backup quarterback after signing Andy Dalton, but it shouldn’t worry the Philadelphia Eagles in the least.
Many will no doubt look at the Dallas Cowboys signing Andy Dalton and cite it as further validation of how the Philadelphia Eagles blew it by picking Jalen Hurts in the second round of last week’s NFL Draft. They’ll say that a division rival has scooped up a perfectly capable backup by being patient, rather than wasting a second round pick like the Eagles did, even though such a statement would be ignorant of the long game that Howie Roseman is clearly playing.
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Still, didn’t the Cowboys really help themselves by bringing in a 9-year veteran in Dalton to serve as insurance for Dak Prescott?
Well, objectively, they did. But there’s no reason that the Eagles should feel any kind of buyer’s remorse here. Like the rest of the league, they knew that the Cincinnati Bengals were going to cut their long-time starter loose, and that he would find work quickly. And the Eagles could have been in on that if they really wanted to. But they have bigger fish to fry and a plan in place that doesn’t include the kind of legitimate but short-term move that the Cowboys made to bring in Dalton.
Good for Dalton to secure himself a contract that could be worth up to $7 million and putting himself in a position where he could be useful. He clearly had hit the end of the road in Cincy. But he’s frankly had his chance to make noise in the NFL, and he shouldn’t scare the Eagles or anyone else. If he sees any appreciable amount of time under center in Dallas this season, it would be a welcome sight for the Birds. Because that means that either Prescott has been so bad that he’s ceded the job to Dalton or that he’s sustained the first impactful injury of his five-year NFL career. We certainly can’t hope for the latter to happen, but it would objectively benefit the Eagles and is probably more likely to occur than Prescott struggling to the point that Dalton needs to step in.
Andy Dalton can still move an offense with capable talent around him, and he’d have that in spades with the Cowboys. But he also managed zero career playoff wins with the Bengals despite having multiple shots to do so for a solid team. The bottom line is, I’m not convinced that he can step in save the Cowboys’ season if Prescott goes down any more than Jalen Hurts could do it for the Eagles if something befell Carson Wentz. And at least we know that Hurts could surprise us with something we’ve never seen before; Dalton’s bag of tricks has been empty since about 2015.
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The move to bring in Dalton makes sense, and it’s a step up from Cooper Rush for the Cowboys. The Eagles are probably even nodding in approval about how Dallas addressed the position with a presumably solid option, just as they feel that they have with Hurts. But Dalton won’t end up paying off for the Cowboys, whether or not he gets into game action. His best days are long past, and the Eagles don’t need to concern themselves with the possibility of facing him this season. The weapons around him can be formidable, but Dalton’s current skill set doesn’t have him in the position to use them properly.