Tanner McKee says Eagles ‘need me to be better’ after his first start filling in for Jalen Hurts
McKee completed 26 of his 45 pass attempts for 215 yards and a touchdown against Carolina, but the offense isn’t operating well enough to win football games.
Tanner McKee didn’t learn he was the starter on Sunday until Thursday, when the backup quarterback stepped into the huddle during walkthrough with the first-team Eagles offense as news started to get around about Jalen Hurts’ superficial blood clot.
He didn’t learn until the weekend that his spot start would be an extended stint as the team’s starter with Hurts on injured reserve and out for at least the next four games and possibly longer. There is an adage in this sport about backups preparing like they’re the starter in an effort to both mentally and physically prepare to play in a sport that often — very often in the case of the 2026 Eagles — requires reserves to be ready.
But for McKee, the late-in-the-week knowledge that he was starting Sunday made for a condensed cramming of the game plan. No, Hurts hasn’t been running often in Sean Mannion’s offense, but the quarterbacks don’t have the same skill sets, which means the approach isn’t the same. McKee spent more time in meetings with Mannion and quarterbacks coach Parks Frazier. They highlighted McKee’s favorite plays. On Sunday, they talked about those plays on the sideline between series.
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“We’re always in communication,” McKee said. “I feel like that’s a very positive thing with Sean.”
Right now, it may be one of the few positive things. Because no matter which quarterback is running Mannion’s scheme, the offense isn’t operating well enough to win football games. The Eagles lost their fourth consecutive game Sunday, 25-14, and netted just 222 yards, their second-lowest total of the season.
McKee — a backup 2023 sixth-round pick playing behind three backup linemen, without Saquon Barkley and his two backups, and with a DeVonta Smith still seemingly on a snap restriction — completed 26 of his 45 pass attempts for 215 yards and a touchdown. The Eagles couldn’t run the ball one week after their lowest rushing output in 11 years. They tallied just 35 yards on the ground.
McKee, who started for the first time in a non-Week 18 game in his four-season career, was sacked three times for 28 yards, including an 11-yard loss on the first play of the game. The Eagles struggled with Carolina’s blitzes and McKee often was under duress. But even when he wasn’t, he struggled at times to connect with receivers, especially on sideline routes.
His best pass of the day was a 19-yard touchdown throw to Smith, who caught seven of 14 targets for 75 yards. There were more lowlights. The Eagles had 45 total yards on their first 20 plays. They again failed to score in the third quarter and have just six points in six third quarters this season, the fewest in the NFL.
“My team needs me to be better,” McKee said when asked what his initial thoughts were after the game. “I need to be better. I am so much better. And I’m looking forward to learning everything and becoming the player that I know I am, the player that I can prove that I am. A lot of things obviously that were frustrating that fall on me.”
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“Even from the jump, just communication, whether it was guys in the wrong spot, I got to get them fixed,” he said. “Or a missed call, I got to get it fixed. That falls on the quarterback. That is nobody else’s responsibility but the quarterback’s. That’s on me. We had two drives that stalled just from miscommunication or things like that that I got to get fixed. I think I got to settle down a little quicker.
“I got to go out and be ready to roll. I felt like I was prepared and everything, but I got to be able to make those adjustments on the fly.”
Despite another day of mostly offensive ineptitude from a depleted unit, the Eagles still had a chance to win. McKee and the offense had the ball down 19-14 with under 10 minutes to play. But on first down, Jake Majors, the starting center who began the season on the practice squad, snapped the ball too low and past McKee for a 12-yard loss. The Eagles couldn’t rebound, and their fifth three-and-out of the day ruined their chances of winning.
“Just shooting ourselves in the foot,” McKee said. “I think that’s been a common thing that we need to fix.”
Six games in, it’s fair to wonder how that might be accomplished.
“We’re going to have to do different things to help the offense get going,” head coach Nick Sirianni said. “We’re never going to make an excuse on anything. We have to do different things to get them going and score more points, plain and simple, especially there in that second half. So, everything’s on the table. To do the same thing over and over again and not get the results, that’d be foolish.”
McKee will for the first time in his NFL career go from one game to the next as a starter and will see his first extended run as the No. 1 quarterback since he was at Stanford in 2022.
“I feel like I have a good preparation process,” McKee said.
He imagines he’ll spend a little more time this week than normal with Mannion, Frazier, and even Sirianni.
“I think stick to the process,” he said. “Obviously stings a little more. There’s things that are more frustrating and you make a mistake or something like that. But obviously it’s another opportunity to learn, to grow, and to get better. I think that’s something that’s very positive about this team. We’re all we have, that’s all we need. And I think people underestimate how tight-knit we really are.”
