Philadelphia Eagles: Stock watch versus the Pittsburgh Steelers

Stock up: Joe Flacco

After bouncing around over the past few seasons in the weird, post-starting quarterback phase of his career, Joe Flacco appears to have fully embraced being a backup quarterback on his hometown team and looks like he’s having a whole lot of fun doing it.

Entering the game after a pair of crowd-pleasing drives from Jalen Hurts, Flacco moved the ball efficiently, made good decisions, and did everything in his power to make 2021 fourth-round pick Kenneth Gainwell look like a star.

Flacco’s unit scored the Eagles’ only touchdown – though most of that credit goes to Quez Watkins – picked up points on 75 percent of their drives, and hopefully gave fans the Delaware Valley and beyond hope that if something happens to Hurts, Nick Sirianni’s offense won’t totally fall apart.

Is Joe Flacco the second – third? – coming of Nick Foles? No, probably not, but if he’s fully bought into being the Eagles’ backup quarterback, I’m sure they are over the moon to have him.

Stock down: Nick Mullens

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Heading into the slate of preseason games, I queried whether the Eagles should set aside a roster spot for Nick Mullens to remain on the active roster as a sort of backup quarterback in waiting, or if the team should instead subject him to waivers knowing that they can secure a comparable player after the league trims down their collective rosters to 53.

If Game 1 of the preseason is of any indication, it would appear things are trending towards the latter.

To say Mullens was bad when he took over the Eagles’ offense in the second half would be putting it kindly.

After moving the ball efficiently in the first half, Mullens and company looked out of step, resulting in zero additional points on the board, two punts, and a pair of drives ending in interceptions by 2019 third-round pick Justin Layne and Lafayette Pitts, a deep reserve who hasn’t logged a defensive stat since 2018.

Could Mullens bounce back over the next two weeks? Was his performance impacted by his lackluster offensive weapons? Only time will tell, but if you leveraged your future on Mullens making the team, I’d start to hedge your bets with stock in Watkins before it goes #ToTheMoon.