Philadelphia Eagles choose Josh McCown over Nate Sudfeld as backup

The backup quarterback question is finally answered. Once again, Nate Sudfeld is the third-string guy on the depth chart.

For the last two years, the Philadelphia Eagles have been fortunate to have Nick Foles as the backup quarterback behind Carson Wentz. This year though, the Super Bowl LII MVP was issued a starting job over in Jacksonville, leaving the Eagles with a decision to make.

At first, it felt like a no-brainer for the Eagles to offer the second-string job to Nate Sudfeld, who has been here for the last couple of years. It looked like the Eagles were headed down that road, until Sudfeld went down with a broken wrist during the first preseason game this past summer.

Sudfeld’s injury forced the Eagles to go out and look for some help from an experienced veteran. Therefore, they were able to lure Josh McCown out of retirement and planned to keep him on board for the entire 2019 season, despite Sudfeld being able to return by week three. As expected, Sudfeld got healthy once again for the Detroit game.

At that point though, the Eagles still didn’t make it clear who the backup would truly be if Wentz went out with an injury. As both, Sudfeld and McCown were active on game day, the question of who is truly the second-string quarterback was still up in there. However, we finally have our answer here ahead of Week 5.

Josh McCown is the Eagles backup quarterback

Before Sunday’s Week 5 matchup against the Jets, the Philadelphia Eagles announced their actives and inactives a little under two hours before the 1 pm kickoff. Lately, they have had Sudfeld suit up on game day. This week though, that’s not the case.

Nate Sudfeld ended up getting listed as an inactive versus the Jets. While many assumed McCown was probably the backup regardless based on his experience alone, the Eagles wouldn’t actually go ahead and confirm it one-hundred percent. This week, we got our answer, though. McCown is the guy for the 2019 season until further notice.