Hype Turns To Reality: Eagles' Tanner McKee Is A Good Backup

PHILADELPHIA - For the second straight season, Tanner McKee’s Week 18 cameo followed a similar script with the strong-armed, third-year player starting fast and finishing flat.

During Sunday’s 24-17 loss to Washington, a 16-for-25 performance for 201 yards over the first seven possessions evaporated into a 5 of 15 finish, derailing a week’s worth of sports-talk radio gold picking at the low-hanging fruit of confident, divisive throws in a less-than high-leverage environment.

When McKee is on, the football is delivered where it should be with alacrity and purpose. However, when the third-year product felt uncomfortable, McKee was far too quick to flush to his right, instead of climbing the pocket.

Like most traditional quarterbacks, McKee’s strengths erode quickly when the lengthy QB is forced off his spots.

The good news is that McKee moves the football around with all nine receivers he targeted against the Commanders, catching at least one pass.

“I kind of have a philosophy that the defense is going to tell you where to throw the ball, and so there are some times where we call them pure progressions where you go through your first read all the way to your fourth read, if there is one,” McKee explained.

“Then, we have split-field reads, matchup reads, where it’s kind of mirrored on both sides. You take your best matchup versus leverage or rotation, whatever it is. But generally speaking, I’d say yeah, I just try to take what the defense gives me.”

What McKee was explaining was interesting because it’s an indication that the Eagles use both pure-progression and coverage reads depending on the circumstance, a more piecemealed approach that many teams and one the Eagles didn't shy away from with backup. That's a good sign.

In a 60-minute evaluation with backup players, McKee simply wasn’t effective out of structure, and his accuracy drops when the feet are moving.

“When you don’t have your starting offensive line, and you’ve got to have lots of different thuds on the D-ends and chip blocks, rather than get everybody out in the route scheme, things like that make a huge difference,” receiver Britain Covey said.

In the end, McKee proved to be a capable backup who looks like an above-average option to start a game or two and keep you competitive if need be.

However, the pie-in-the-sky thinking that he might be able to generate substantial draft capital or actually push Jalen Hurts in Philadelphia is just that.

The Good And The Bad

Jan 4, 2026; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Tanner McKee (16) greets fans before the game against the Washington Commanders at Lincoln Financial Field. | Bill Streicher-Imagn Images

"I thought he did a lot of good things," head coach Nick Sirianni said. "Like any game, he's going to want some plays back, but I thought he did a lot of good things and we were able to move the ball.

"Obviously, we didn't finish a couple times in the red zone for different reasons. ... But yeah, I thought we moved the ball up and down the field against a well-respected opponent."

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