Eagles trade Matt Barkley to Cardinals, open door for Tim Tebow – CBSSports.com

Set everything you own to DEFCON 1. Tim Tebow is going to make an NFL roster. Or should anyway, after the Eagles traded Matt Barkley to the Cardinals for a conditional late-round pick, CBS Sports NFL Insider Jason La Canfora confirms.

The move, first reported by Jay Glazer of FOX Sports, is a stunner in advance of Saturday’s 4 p.m. ET deadline to get rosters down to 53 and opens up the door for Tebow to serve as Philadelphia’s third-string quarterback.

It looked like Tebow might not make the roster with the choice coming down to him and Barkley for the third quarterback behind Sam Bradford and Mark Sanchez.

At the very least Tebow made it a difficult choice after an impressive performance on Thursday night.

It’s possible Tebow still doesn’t make the roster. Chip Kelly could look at that roster spot as critical to having an extra defensive player and decide just to roll with two quarterbacks. He could, in theory, snag Tebow pretty easily at any time during the year.

But this could also fit the theory we’ve been floating all along: Kelly used Tebow frequently in two-point conversion spots during the preseason and could potentially roll with him during the regular season, forcing teams to prepare for an additional package of plays each week.

The pick involved is a conditional 7th-round pick the Eagles receive if Barkley is on Arizona’s roster for six games in 2015.