Who is the main quarterback for the Eagles?

After trading former MVP candidate Carson Wentz this offseason, the Eagles refused to commit to any one successor at quarterback. First, they were linked to top draft prospects. Then they were linked to the Texans' Deshaun Watson. Even after reserving first-team practice reps for second-year man Jalen Hurts, the new staff never jumped at the chance to crown the former second-rounder as QB1. On Tuesday, that changed. Addressing reporters ahead of the club's Sept. 12 opener, coach Nick Sirianni officially named Hurts the Eagles' 2021 starter, saying the Oklahoma product "earned that right" with a strong summer.

"Really nobody else got any reps with the ones," Sirianni said, "and Jalen has known, 'Hey, nobody else has gotten any reps with the ones but me,' and Jalen is our starter. He's done a great job. We wanted him to take advantage of the opportunity and take the reins with ... the opportunity that he got, and we feel like the preseason that he had, he did that."

Sirianni talked up competition at every position on the Eagles' shuffled roster, including QB, but never indicated throughout the offseason that anyone was in a position to take Hurts' presumptive job. The team added former longtime Ravens starter Joe Flacco on a one-year deal as the new No. 2, and just recently traded a late-round draft pick to the Jaguars for Gardner Minshew, but general manager Howie Roseman told reporters Tuesday that both Minshew and Flacco will sit behind Hurts to open the year.

"We had a chance to talk to Jalen [Hurts] and to Joe, too, and tell them that we thought it was an opportunity to get a good player, a good person at an important position," Roseman said of Minshew, "and certainly Jalen had an excellent preseason and continued to get better, and Joe was really impressive during the preseason and during camp as a whole."

Sirianni, for what it's worth, added that he saw a marked improvement in Hurts from the start of camp until the end of the preseason, during which the former Alabama standout played minimally.

"I consistently saw a player that got better every single day," he said. "I consistently saw a player make the read, getting better with his reads and his accuracy and his ability to run and when not to run ... He did exactly what we wanted him to do. Again, nobody else has worked with the ones, so you could really argue that we named a starter a while ago. Jalen will be our starter, and he's earned that right with a great preseason, and we've got a lot of confidence in him and in that room in general."

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Jalen Hurts has done more than enough to prove he should be the starting quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles in 2022, evidenced by Philadelphia reaching the playoffs in a transition year. While Hurts has the starting quarterback job secure, the Eagles have a good No. 2 quarterback waiting for an opportunity to start again. 

Gardner Minshew reportedly asked Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni what it would take to start in Philadelphia after his performance in Week 13 against the New York Jets. Filling in for Hurts (who was out with an ankle injury), Minshew finished 20 of 25 for 242 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions (133.7 rating) in the Eagles' 33-18 victory. 

Minshew had a case for the starting job based off that one game, but that opportunity isn't likely happening in Philadelphia. 

"He is a competitor. He is locked in, whether he's the backup, whether he's playing," Sirianni said. "He's been in both scenarios this year with the Jets game, playing in that game, not knowing if he was playing in that game until late in the week.

"The guy is going to prepare like crazy, no matter what the situation, and he's competitive. Of course, every backup that we have on this team, if they didn't want to be the starter, I would have an issue with them being the backup."

The Eagles don't have an issue at quarterback if Hurts were to miss time with an injury. In that Jets game, Minshew completed his first 11 passes and his 93.3% completion rate in the first half was the highest since Donovan McNabb in 2007 -- tied for the best mark by any Eagles quarterback since at least 1991 (when those stats first were kept). The Eagles scored on their first seven possessions in that game, the first time they have done that since at least 2001.

Hurts has done enough to prove he's the starting quarterback for the Eagles going forward. Over the last three games, Hurts completed a season-high 66.7% of his passes for 709 yards with three touchdowns to just one interception for a 101.3 passer rating. Of quarterbacks with 50 pass attempts, Hurts is seventh in the league in passer rating over the last three games, ninth in passing yards, and third in yards per attempt (8.75). The Eagles went 3-0 in those games, finishing sixth in the NFL in yards per game (391) and fourth in yards per play (6.1). Philadelphia averaged 27 points per game, good for ninth in the league.

Hurts is the eighth quarterback in NFL history to throw for 3,000 yards and rush for 750 yards in a season. The Eagles don't appear to be moving on from Hurts, at least not in favor of Minshew anyway. 

"Gardner has played a lot of football in this league. I got a lot of confidence in him that he's our backup and he's the player that he is," Sirianni said. "Again, we always talk about wanting your backup quarterback to be able to come in and function and give you a chance to win.

"And we saw that. He was awesome in the game that he played against the Jets. And so, I would be disappointed if Gardner didn't want to be the starter, but obviously Jalen [Hurts] is our starter."