Tanner McKee showed he can handle filling in for Jalen Hurts. Will he have to against the Packers?
McKee, one of two healthy quarterbacks on the roster, took control and led the Eagles to a win against the Giants without committing a turnover.
Seven hundred and seventy days since he last started a football game, Tanner McKee plopped himself into a chair atop a dais Sunday at Lincoln Financial Field. Upon experiencing the once-familiar sensation of facing a room of reporters in a postgame press conference, he said: “Been a while since I’ve done one of these. Feel like I’m back in college.”
College. Yep, it had been that long. Brigham Young 35, Stanford 26 in Palo Alto, Calif., on Nov. 26, 2022, McKee throwing for 313 yards and a touchdown for the Cardinal, who lost for the ninth time in 12 games. Five months later, the Eagles drafted McKee in the sixth round of the 2023 NFL draft, with the 188th overall pick. More than 20 months after that, there was McKee out there from beginning to end against the Giants: 27 completions in 41 pass attempts, 269 yards, two touchdowns, no turnovers, total control in a meaningless 20-13 Eagles victory — meaningless to the Eagles in the standings, sure, but maybe not in any other way.
» READ MORE: Eagles are better than they have ever been. The road to the Super Bowl is tougher than ever. Up first, the Packers.
Kenny Pickett was active for Sunday’s game but, with his injured ribs, stayed on the sideline, and Jalen Hurts’ health and availability remained as mysterious as they have been ever since he suffered that concussion against the Washington Commanders two weeks ago. Nick Sirianni would go as far as confirming a report that Hurts had been present at the Eagles’ walk-through Saturday. Beyond that admission though, he continued to be cagey and evasive about whether and when Hurts would return to the lineup. “He’s progressing through the protocol,” Sirianni said.
At this point, the only way for any outsider to know whether Hurts will play in the Eagles’ wild-card game next Sunday against the Green Bay Packers will be to wait and learn if he’s cleared to practice either Tuesday or Wednesday. It’s certainly possible, even likely, that the Eagles are keeping their mouths shut about Hurts to gain and/or maintain some competitive advantage, some small element of surprise. But it’s also possible that Hurts won’t pass the protocol in time to suit up against the Packers.
The facts that a glancing blow at best appeared to cause Hurts’ concussion and that Hurts tried to reenter the Washington game after trudging to the sideline are irrelevant. There’s no way of knowing for certain whether he’ll play until he completes every step of the protocol in its proper order. If he happens to wake up with a headache Tuesday morning …
“I haven’t thought about that,” McKee said. “I’ll let those guys answer any questions that they want about them. Obviously, I’m going to do my preparation to play because I’ve been doing that all season. I’m going to be doing the same thing. I’ll be ready, whether I’m the one, the two, the three, the six, whatever it is. Just doing my own thing.”
Until those questions are answered, McKee and Ian Book are, officially speaking, the only healthy quarterbacks on the Eagles’ roster. Which is why McKee’s terrific performance Sunday — even if it came at the expense of the Giants, a team so incompetent that it failed to tank properly — was so important. If Hurts returns, the Eagles can feel more comfortable that McKee can be their primary backup, both this postseason and next season. They think that highly of him.
“Every time he gets an opportunity in practice, he does a really good job,” Sirianni said. “We’re excited about Tanner and the player he is. I love our quarterback room, obviously starting with Jalen and all the great things Jalen’s done this year to help us get to where we are right now. Kenny’s had really good minutes. Played a good game last week. … Love that room. Awesome job by Howie [Roseman] and his staff to get these guys.”
If Hurts doesn’t return, McKee showed enough Sunday to suggest that the falloff from Hurts to him wouldn’t be as steep as one might first think. He has a stronger, more accurate arm than Pickett; that much is obvious. And more than once, he handled a pass rush with enough poise to turn what might have been a sack or incompletion into a completion and substantive gain of yardage. Late in the first half, for instance, with linebacker Boogie Basham bearing down on him, McKee backpedaled, then slipped a screen pass at the last moment to running back Will Shipley, who scooted for 13 yards to set up a Jake Elliott field goal. Most everything he did seemed smooth, as if he had been doing this for a while, even though he hadn’t.
“I wouldn’t say there were too many things that felt like they weren’t natural,” McKee said. “That’s kind of the point of practice and getting prepared and feeling comfortable. If there was a route that we didn’t love, let’s either work this or take it out. I was very comfortable with the game plan and the understanding of what we were trying to get to with checks. …
“You can do a lot of walk-throughs, a lot of practice, but it is a little different in a game — the adrenaline, what’s on the line, things like that. It is nice to have that under my belt.”
It was more than nice. It was necessary. It had been 770 days. Tanner McKee might not have to wait so long next time.