Another thing it wouldn’t be is inspiring, which the sentence “Grier will be 30 at the start of the season but he’s only played in two career NFL games” conveys well. Trey Lance is still available in free agency, but it appears the Cowboys have realized they’re not going to make that happen. Surely the Cowboys had to have had good pre-draft grades on Matt Corral or something like that, right? But no, here we are, staring down Will Grier starts behind a quarterback who has missed 14 games the last three seasons.

It is a low-impact inactives list for the Cowboys in Week 18. Dallas has been eliminated from playoff contention and will look to impact the Commanders’ playoff seeding with a win this week. Grier will serve as the emergency third quarterback, having just been signed to the active roster this past week.

Grier was with the fringes of the Cowboys roster in 2022, but waived him at last cuts in 2023. The Eagles released him from the practice squad to give him a chance to play in Dallas, and there’s not a better depth chart for an aspiring third quarterback to look up to than Cooper Rush and Trey Lance. Grier has two career starts, both made in 2019, and is 29 years old.

Grier bounced around between the Bengals, Patriots, and Chargers in 2023, but didn’t play a down of football in the regular season. The former third-round pick hasn’t taken a regular season snap since 2019, and will face an uphill battle to make the Eagles’ 53-man roster this offseason. He’ll likely battle with Kenny Pickett for the backup job, but landing a spot on Philly’s practice squad seems like the best case scenario for him at this point.