Cole Payton is now one injury from starting an NFL game

Tanner McKee will take the snaps Sunday against Carolina, which I covered yesterday. What I didn't get into is what sits behind him. The depth chart at quarterback currently reads McKee, then Cole Payton — a practice-squad signing — and that's the roster. If McKee goes down at any point against the Panthers, Philadelphia's answer is a player who has not thrown a meaningful pass in a regular-season game.

This is the part of the Hurts blood clot situation that hasn't fully landed yet. The injury itself is serious and indefinite; the timeline is unknown. But the structural problem is that the Eagles entered this stretch with a thin quarterback room even before Hurts went down, and nothing in the last week suggests they've added to it. McKee is the starter now by necessity, not design, and Payton is the emergency plan.

The Eagles have weathered a lot of attrition this season — Barkley out, Shipley on IR, the receiving corps running short. Each of those losses had a next man up. At quarterback, there isn't really a next man up after McKee. There's just Payton, and then a very uncomfortable conversation.