Brandon Walker's hat bet goes live as Joe Milton starts

The bet goes back to the week Philly signed Milton, and The Yak dug up the receipt Wednesday.

Viva La Stool

@VivaLaStool

Brandon might have to eat an entire hat and throwback to a time before Connor dyed his eyebrows

Barstool Sports

@barstoolsports

JOE MILTON TIME ROCKET ARM t.co/zftkcT2h5k

Here's the deal as The Yak laid it out: if Milton starts 3 straight games, Brandon has to eat Conner Knapp's hat. Back then it was a free bet. Milton was a practice-squad arm the Eagles grabbed from Dallas on Oct. 16, a day before Jalen Hurts went on IR with blood clots in both lungs, and Tanner McKee was the guy taking over. Hurts is expected to miss the rest of the season, per ESPN. Even so, nobody on the Barstool side was treating Philly's season as a live one.

Wake Up Barstool

@wakeupbarstool

“The Eagles, they're not winning anything this year anyway.”

0:46

Then the losing kept going. The Eagles are 2-6, last in the NFC East, and have lost 6 in a row. McKee started the last 3 games and went 63.2% for 638 yards, 2 touchdowns and 2 picks. On Monday Nick Sirianni said Philly was sticking with him. By Wednesday that was off, and Milton gets his first NFL start, making him the Eagles' third different starter this season. He was a 2024 sixth-rounder for New England, got traded to Dallas in April 2025, and played 4 games off the bench behind Dak Prescott last year. Then the Cowboys waived him in camp after he lost the backup job to Sam Howell.

Barstool Gambling

@stoolgambling

Eagles vs Giants on Sunday is now must see TV Joe Milton and JJ McCarthy have CANNONS

Those are Combine numbers from 2024, not anything from this season. Still, the arm is the one thing everybody agrees Milton has, and the guy across from him has one too. JJ McCarthy landed with the Giants in a late-September trade with Minnesota for a fifth-round pick after Jaxson Dart went down with a season-ending knee injury in Week 2. Within 3 weeks McCarthy had taken the job from Jameis Winston, and in his first start he threw for 252 yards in a 27-21 overtime win over Houston.

Barstool Sports

@barstoolsports

Joe Milton vs JJ McCarthy on Sunday

Adam Schefter

@AdamSchefter

A QB change in Philadelphia: the Eagles are naming Joe Milton their starting QB and benching Tanner McKee for Sunday’s game vs. the Giants, per @mikegarafolo and me. t.co/kVkMqLmUb4

So yes, a 2-6 team on a 6-game skid playing the Giants is getting the main-event treatment, and the hat is the only reason. Sunday is start 1. Brandon needs Milton to either play his way out of the job or get pulled before the third game. Given how fast Sirianni went from backing McKee to benching him, Brandon has a real shot. But if Milton plays well, Philly has very little reason to go back to McKee, and in 3 weeks Brandon could be sitting on The Yak set eating Conner's hat.