The Dallas Cowboys agreed to a one-year deal with former Philadelphia Eagles and Washington Commanders QB Sam Howell on Tuesday night, a team source confirmed to The Athletic. ESPN first reported the deal.<\/p>\n
Adding Howell is somewhat surprising considering that the Cowboys already have franchise quarterback Dak Prescott, the NFL\u2019s highest-paid player, Joe Milton and Will Grier in the QB room.<\/p>\n
Milton was Dallas\u2019 backup last season after the Cowboys traded a fifth-round pick to the New England Patriots for him and a seventh-rounder.<\/p>\n
The addition of Howell means competition for Milton at the backup spot. Howell has started 18 NFL games, all coming with the Washington Commanders. Milton has only played in five NFL games.<\/p>\n
Grier had been Dallas\u2019 No. 3 quarterback. He was signed to a reserve\/futures contract last month.<\/p>\n
How he fits<\/p>\n
The Cowboys appeared to have their quarterback room settled entering the offseason with Prescott as the franchise guy, Milton as the backup and Grier as the No. 3. Adding Howell indicates that they want competition for Milton.<\/p>\n
Howell, a fifth-round pick in 2022, has starting experience with the Commanders. He started all 17 games during Washington\u2019s 4-13 season in 2023. He threw for 3,946 yards with 21 touchdowns and 21 interceptions that season. He also had five rushing touchdowns.<\/p>\n
Milton\u2019s strong arm gives him a higher upside, but Howell\u2019s experience could be something that makes for an interesting training camp and preseason battle between the two.<\/p>\n
2026 roster impact<\/p>\n
Prescott and Milton are going to be on the roster. The Cowboys are unlikely to move on from a third-year player they used a fifth-round pick on last year. Now, Howell could beat him out for the No. 2 job, pushing Milton to No. 3.<\/p>\n
Grier is the odd man out. He was signed to a reserve\/futures contract last month, but the Cowboys wouldn\u2019t have made this move if they thought Grier was a part of their future.<\/p>\n
Cap update<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a one-year deal but the dollar amount has not yet been revealed. Don\u2019t expect a big number here. As soon as Dallas made Prescott the highest-paid player in the game, their spending on any other QB was never going to be noteworthy. It\u2019s likely to be an incentive-laden contract to where Howell gets a significant pay increase if he ends up playing in games.<\/p>\n
Machota\u2019s takeaways<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a little surprising because Milton looked to be locked in as Prescott\u2019s backup for another season. Clearly the Cowboys need to see a lot more from him this offseason, in training camp and in the preseason. They wouldn\u2019t be making this move if they were completely certain about Milton\u2019s future as their 2026 backup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Dallas Cowboys agreed to a one-year deal with former Philadelphia Eagles and Washington Commanders QB Sam Howell…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199294,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,113,104,103,80],"class_list":["post-199293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-cowboys","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-nfl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}