Within just a few minutes of Wednesday night's season opener between the Patriots and Seahawks, Seattle quarterback Sam Darnold suffered a game-ending hip injury.
With immediate concerns about his long-term availability, it drew plenty of attention from around the league and even pulled Dallas Cowboys reserve QB Joe Milton III into the discussion.
The Seahawks have reason to be aware of Joe Milton's potential
Before we knew the extent of Darnold's injury, Cowboys beat writer Nick Harris wondered if Seattle could be interested in Milton for increased QB depth. After all, the Seahawks saw Milton up close in Dallas' first preseason game. While it wasn't as dazzling as his performance the following week in Arizona, Milton still looked good during the second half against Seattle.
The following Saturday, Milton's huge performance against the Cardinals also likely hit the Seahawks' radar. After all, Arizona is a division rival for Seattle. What's more, they play each other in Week 2. So any scouting the Seahawks were doing of the Cardinals that week, they were also catching the show that Milton put on.
After a solid 107 yards and one touchdown in one half against Seattle, Milton went off for 179 yards and three scores, two passing and one rushing, in the first half against Arizona.
Seattle probably won't add a QB for now, but what about the next team?
Thankfully, Darnold's injury is reportedly not serious enough to send him to IR. He may only miss a week or two, in which case Seattle will probably just run with Drew Lock and Jalen Milroe as already-rostered passers.
But even if Dallas dodged this bullet, look how quickly Milton could've been snatched away. He's sitting on the practice squad right now, open to all 31 teams. Maybe nobody had a need to put him on their 53 last Monday, but all it takes is a couple more injuries, especially more major ones than what Darnold ended up with, for someone to poach Milton away.
Maybe the Cowboys are okay with that possibility. After all, handing their backup job to Sam Howell and not even keeping Milton on the 53 weren't exactly endorsements of his potential. If Dallas isn't that invested in him going forward, they won't lose much sleep if he ends up on another roster.
With his overall strong August performance, Joe Milton III earned a lot of new fans in Dallas. It was hard to believe that nobody wanted to trade for him after those games, let alone claim him off waivers. Obviously, there's more to this than just how he looked in the preseason.
But remember, Dallas waited until the day after final cuts to release Joe Milton because they wanted to avoid him getting caught up in the major waiver activity. To some extent, they were concerned about keeping him in the pipeline, even if it was just on the practice squad.
So if that's still a desire, the Cowboys may only get a few more of these QB injuries throughout the NFL before they lose him.
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