Eagles Turn to Joe Milton as Starting QB vs Giants

The Philadelphia Eagles are making another change at quarterback. Joe Milton will start Sunday’s Week 9 game against the New York Giants, replacing Tanner McKee, according to reports on Wednesday 4 November from ESPN and NFL Network.

NBC Sports Philadelphia reported that ESPN first reported the news on Wednesday afternoon, two days after head coach Nick Sirianni had publicly backed McKee. Pro Football Rumors reported that NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo also confirmed the switch, making Milton the Eagles’ third different starting quarterback this season.

The move comes with Philadelphia at 2-6 and riding a six-game losing streak. The Eagles host the Giants, who are 4-2-1, in a divisional game that now carries extra weight for a team trying to stop its season sliding further away.

A sharp reversal from Monday

Sirianni had been emphatic on Monday that he was sticking with McKee. “Tanner (McKee’s) our guy. We’re not making any changes there,” he said at his press availability, according to Reuters reporting carried by Field Level Media.

By Wednesday, that position had changed. Sirianni instead praised the progress Milton had shown to the Eagles’ staff in his three weeks with the team, and the reports of the switch followed. The speed of the reversal underlines how quickly patience has run out in Philadelphia after six straight defeats.

McKee stepped in when starter Jalen Hurts was ruled out for the rest of the season with blood clots in his lungs. Hurts last played on 11 October, and McKee has started the last three games, losing all three. In those starts he completed 63.2 per cent of his passes for 638 yards, with two touchdowns and two interceptions, for a passer rating of 76.6.

Who is Joe Milton?

Milton, 26, was drafted out of Tennessee by the New England Patriots in the sixth round of the 2024 draft. The Eagles signed him to their 53-man roster off the Dallas Cowboys’ practice squad on 16 October, shortly after Hurts was placed on injured reserve.

It took him about a week to move ahead of rookie Cole Payton as the backup, and he is now the starter just three weeks after joining the team. He has not played a snap in 2026, so Sunday will be his first-career start.

His last extended action came in Week 18 of the 2024 season against the Buffalo Bills, when he was still with New England. What he brings, according to analysts who have followed the move, is a powerful arm and better mobility than McKee — qualities Philadelphia hopes can stretch defences that have crowded the short passing game in recent weeks.

The question is whether a quarterback with so little recent game time can steady an offence that has lost six in a row. One projection model, AccuScore, simulated the rest of Philadelphia’s season 50,000 times and found the switch barely moved the team’s playoff chances, from 3.7 per cent to 3.3 per cent — a reminder that one change at quarterback, on its own, does not fix a losing team.

Backup changes are shaping the season

Backup quarterbacks have already changed games this season: the Cardinals stunned the Cowboys in overtime after turning to Gardner Minshew, who threw three touchdown passes off the bench. The Bills cut C.J. Gardner-Johnson after six games earlier this week, another sign of how quickly teams are moving when results turn.

Elsewhere, the Jets stunned the Canadiens in overtime after a historic comeback, a reminder that momentum in sport can turn in minutes — though Philadelphia will know that a single win on Sunday will not erase a 2-6 start.

For Milton, the opportunity is both sudden and simple. He was signed as emergency cover, then as a backup, and now, less than a month after arriving in Philadelphia, he is the starter for a divisional game against the Giants. How he handles that step — the speed of the game, the protection in front of him, and the weight of a losing streak — will decide whether this is a short-term spark or the start of a longer run.

If the Eagles win, the conversation will shift to whether Milton has earned a second start. If they lose a seventh straight game, the questions will turn back to the wider problems that no single quarterback change can solve. Either way, Sunday will be the first real evidence of what Philadelphia has in its newest starter.