Be honest. You saw the 53-man roster drop yesterday, scrolled to the quarterback section, and said "wait, what" out loud.
Four quarterbacks.
Hurts. McKee. Dalton. Cole Payton.
Four.
Howie spent all of training camp letting Dalton and McKee fight it out for QB2, three preseason games of everyone squinting at box scores trying to figure out who won, and then Sunday came and he just... didn't pick. Kept both. Kept the rookie too. Punted the whole decision into the regular season like it's a 4th and 12 from his own 20.
And here's the thing. It's probably the right move.
That's the most Philly part of all this. We complain about it, we make fun of it, and deep down we know Howie's playing chess while the rest of the league argues over checkers. McKee has trade value. Dalton has the "adult in the room" thing. Payton's a lottery ticket. Nobody wanted to hand a division rival a free backup QB by cutting the wrong guy. So you keep all of them and let some desperate GM call you in Week 3 when their starter's ribs explode.
We've watched this movie before. Howie hoards assets, everyone calls it weird, then it wins us a game in December.
The cuts that actually hurt
Pour one out for Carson Steele. Man did everything right this preseason — caught passes out of the backfield, played special teams, played fullback, probably would've driven the equipment truck if they asked. Still got cut. That's the roster-bubble life. If he clears waivers and lands on the practice squad, we all pretend this never happened.
Also Quez Watkins got released again, which at this point is just an annual Philly tradition. Like the Mummers, but faster.
They cut three of their own 2026 draft picks too, which sounds bad until you remember this roster is so deep that seventh-rounders are getting squeezed out by actual NFL players. That's a good problem. We're allowed to say it's a good problem.
Two weeks until Washington. Fourth QB and all.
Meanwhile, out west, the Phillies refuse to die
Quick check-in on the baseball team, because they beat the Angels 4-2 in 10 innings Sunday night and it was exactly as stressful as that sounds.
The baserunning was a crime scene. Genuinely some of the worst decisions I've seen grown men make on a baseball field. And they won anyway, because that's what this stretch has been — 15-5 in their last 20, clawing back into an NL East race everyone had buried in June.
Realmuto went deep. Sosa went deep. The bullpen held a lead in extras, which I'm told is legal but still feels like a glitch.
Five back in the division with a month left. A West Coast trip that started with wins instead of the usual 1 a.m. despair. I'm not saying we're back.
I'm just saying I've started checking the standings again, and we all know what that means.
September in this city is about to be absolutely unhinged. Eagles opener in two weeks. Phillies chasing a division. Four quarterbacks.
This team is gonna kill me. Both of them.
