The Eagles shuffled their quarterback room Saturday morning, acquiring Jaguars quarterback Gardner Minshew and releasing Nick Mullens.
The Eagles announced that they had traded a conditional 2022 pick to the Jaguars for Minshew and also released Mullens.
The Eagles sent the Jaguars a 6th-round pick in 2022 that will become a 5th-round pick if Minshew plays at least 50 percent of the snaps in at least three regular-season games, a league source confirmed to NBC Sports Philadelphia.
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Philadelphia sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
Minshew, 25, has started 20 games over the last two years for the Jaguars but lost his starting job to rookie Trevor Lawrence, the first pick overall in this year’s draft.
With the Eagles, Minshew will start out as the No. 3 quarterback behind Jalen Hurts and Joe Flacco, but at 25 he gives the Quarterback Factory a young player with experience who’s had success.
Minshew has two years remaining on his four-year, $2.71 million rookie contract at $850,000 this year and $965,000 next year. Flacco, who is 36, is only signed for this year.
Minshew was drafted by then-Jags general manager David Caldwell, who was fired last fall with the Jaguars sitting at 1-10 after 11 games. He’s currently working in the Eagles' front office with the title personnel executive.
NFL
After Nick Foles got hurt and later benched, Minshew played well as a rookie 6th-round pick out of Washington State in 2019, going 6-6, completing 61 percent of his passes, throwing 21 touchdowns and six interceptions and averaging 234 yards per game. That’s the most TD passes in NFL history by a rookie drafted in the fifth round or later.
Minshew played fairly well last year for a 1-15 Jaguars team, completing 66 percent of his passes for 251 yards per game with 16 TDs and 5 INTs, although the Jags went 1-7 in his eight starts.
Minshew’s career passer rating of 93.1 is 18th-highest in NFL history among QBs who’ve thrown at least 750 passes, and his 240 yards per game ranks 24th-highest in NFL history. He’s thrown the 8th-most passes in NFL history (797) without throwing a pick-6.
His career INT ratio (one every 73 attempts) is 3rd-best in NFL history, behind only Jacoby Brissett and Aaron Rodgers. Patrick Mahomes is fourth.
The Eagles signed Mullens in June to give them an experienced No. 3. Mullens started 16 games with the 49ers from 2018 through 2020 and has a decent 87.2 career passer rating. But he had a poor training camp and threw three interceptions and no TDs in 29 pass attempts during the three preseason games.
Mullens will count $200,000 in dead money against the Eagles’ salary cap, the guaranteed portion of his one-year deal.
Subscribe to the Eagle Eye podcast:
Apple Podcasts | Google Play | Spotify | Stitcher | Art19 | Watch on YouTube