Some Eagles are worried about the São Paulo trip. Tanner McKee aims to talk them down.

Tanner McKee’s job on the Eagles is third-team quarterback, but this week, he has taken on a new role. Let’s call it Brazil Whisperer.

The Eagles are opening their season Friday night in São Paulo vs. the Green Bay Packers, and a few of them have made it clear they don’t think the NFL should be sending the two teams there. Darius Slay said on his podcast Friday that he told his family not to come on the trip, citing worries about crime in the city of more than 11 million people.

“Man, I do not want to go to Brazil,” Slay said on the podcast. “They already told us not to leave the hotel.

“NFL, why do y’all want to send us somewhere where the crime rate is this high?”

The Eagles had a meeting last week that went over some of the dos and don’ts on their trip this week. It seems to have resulted in most players thinking they’d be spending any down time they might have during the jaunt to South America in their hotel rooms. Outside of the dos and don’ts and the worry about potential crime, Eagles safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson wondered in a since-deleted post on social media why the NFL was sending the teams to Brazil while wildfires in the state of São Paulo were causing mild air-quality issues.

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Neither Slay nor Gardner-Johnson spoke with reporters Sunday during the 45 minutes when the Eagles’ locker room was open, although Slay said he planned to be available Monday. Brandon Graham, who is playing in his final season opener Friday night, said everyone is taking the trip in differently and also shared that there are some Eagles worried about the long, nearly 10-hour flight from Philadelphia to São Paulo.

The flight anxiety? McKee, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who served a two-year mission in Brazil, cannot help with that part. But the second-year quarterback is trying his best to quell the anxieties of his teammates when it comes to the other things, which may fall into the same Blown Out of Proportion category as the green-jersey melodrama.

São Paulo is one of the largest cities in the world, the most populous in the Americas, with nearly 4 million more people than New York. A Financial Times article from earlier this year called it “a financial, commercial, and cultural hub that draws immigrants from across the region.” Like many other large metropolises, São Paulo has sections, most notably the historical Centro area, that have seen upticks in crime, homelessness, and drug use. But there are other areas with thriving dining and cultural scenes, too.

“I think a lot of guys have questions about the safety and the culture,” McKee said. “It’s easy for people to be scared about things they don’t know. It’s a completely different country that a lot of people haven’t visited and they’re going to speak a different language and the culture is going to be different. It makes sense to take precautions and things like that. We do that no matter what game we’re going to. I’m just telling the guys, I think everyone is going to be pleasantly surprised how nice everybody is down there and the culture and things like that.

“I would say no matter where you go, if you’re a football team you probably shouldn’t walk around a big city with cash in your hand or things like that.”

The Eagles leave for Brazil on Wednesday and practice on Thursday before Friday’s game (8:15 p.m. in Philadelphia, NBC10). Slay said on his podcast that he planned to be in his hotel room after the long flight. “I’m going to be in the hotel, chilling, minding my business, playing my game,” he said.

Asked how he’s balancing some players not wanting to go with making sure the team is focused, Eagles coach Nick Sirianni gave a business-trip-like answer.

“We’re going there to play and win a football game,” he said. “That’s our only goal as we go down there. It’s just getting everybody in the right mindset of what you need to be when you go down there. You can control the things that you can control. We’re going to Brazil to play. That’s what it is.”

About the various concerns from players in the locker room, Graham said it’s all about supporting one another.

“As long as we got guys talking to each other, make sure that we all make each other feel comfortable, I feel like we can help each other through that,” he said.

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McKee, who said he hopes to one day be an NFL ambassador to help grow the game in Brazil, said he wasn’t sure what he’d be getting into with his limited down time. He was curious how far — if at all — the Eagles would stray from their nutrition plans and explore the Brazilian cuisines.

“We’re really big into our routines,” he said.

This one, no matter how you look at it, is a change. The flight time alone is longer than any of these Eagles have had on a game week. The team plans to fly back to Philadelphia right after the game and has a little bit of extra time built in for recovery, considering its Week 2 game vs. Atlanta is on Monday, Sept. 16.

“I’m just along for the ride,” tackle Lane Johnson said. “The good thing is we’ll have some time to recover.”

Asked if he was worried about any lingering impact from the travel, Johnson said: “It’s just part of the job. It is what it is.”

The Eagles signed wide receiver Griffin Hebert and tight end Kevin Foelsch to the practice squad a day after adding defensive back JT Woods to the group. Woods played in 13 games over the last two seasons for the Los Angeles Chargers, who drafted him in the third round in 2022 and waived him Wednesday.