By Adam
The Cowboys waived Joe Milton III on Monday, and the move reads stranger the longer you sit with it. This is a quarterback Dallas wanted badly enough sixteen months ago to send New England a fifth-round pick, taking back Milton and a seventh, and one who spent August making that trade look shrewd. His 2026 preseason: 29 of 43 for 378 yards, three touchdowns, no interceptions, plus another score with his legs, including a 34-13 win he ran start to finish.
The cut wasn't even a quarterback decision on its face. Dallas claimed running back Emari Demercado off waivers from Kansas City and needed a roster spot, and Milton was the name that came off. That leaves Sam Howell, signed for $2.5 million guaranteed this offseason, as the only quarterback behind Dak Prescott. Howell had a fine preseason himself and brings 18 career starts from his Washington years, and the cap math cuts his way too: Dallas owes him $2 million regardless. Head coach Brian Schottenheimer wasn't pretending the roster is finished, saying "We're still piecing the puzzle together, and that's where this thing is very fluid."
Still, the surprising part isn't that Dallas chose Howell. It's that Milton has never once played badly when someone handed him the field. His NFL debut came in Week 18 of the 2024 season, a Patriots team with nothing to play for giving the sixth-round rookie the game after one Drake Maye series. Milton went 22 of 29 for 241 yards, threw a touchdown, ran for another, and beat the Bills 23-16. Buffalo rested most of its regulars that day, which is the honest caveat, but rookies have looked lost against backups plenty of times. That win was so convincing it cost New England the first overall pick, which tells you the one thing Milton has never been accused of is playing to lose.
Add this summer to that debut and the case file is short but spotless: every time Joe Milton has been given real snaps, he has produced them. The arm has never been the question; he throws it as hard as anyone in the league. The question was always polish, and a preseason with zero interceptions and a 67 percent completion rate is what polish looks like on a stat sheet.
So who calls? He has to pass through waivers first, and any team that claims him takes on nothing but a day-three rookie contract, which is about as cheap as quarterback insurance gets.
The Jets are the cleanest fit in football. They are carrying exactly two quarterbacks: Geno Smith, who turns 36 in October, and rookie fourth-rounder Cade Klubnik, whom Aaron Glenn named the backup on Monday. A 35-year-old starter with a rookie behind him and nobody else in the room is precisely the kind of team that should spend a claim on a 26-year-old with Milton's resume.
Cleveland is the messier version of the same idea. The Browns' room has bodies, with Deshaun Watson, Shedeur Sanders, Dillon Gabriel and Taylen Green all in the building, but no answer, and an unsettled room sometimes has space for one more swing.
And if all 31 teams pass, Milton can come back on Dallas's practice squad, which might quietly be the Cowboys' hope. Given what he's shown every time the lights came on, betting on him going unclaimed feels like the same mistake teams have been making with him for two years.