Why Wasn't QB Tanner McKee in the Game?

In addition to the embarrassing 27-7 loss on Monday Night Football to a Bears team who played their third-string quarterback, the Philadelphia Eagles missed a golden opportunity to showcase their most intriguing trade asset.

Journeyman quarterback Andy Dalton was inserted into the game while Jalen Hurts mysteriously was forced to leave the field as part of the NFL’s concussion protocol. Head coach Nick Sirianni had chosen Dalton as the Eagles’ primary backup passer heading into Week 1 of the season.

Dalton’s stint lasted all of four plays and ended with a terribly thrown interception in the end zone that destroyed Philadelphia’s momentum.

Interception or not, those reps should not have gone to Dalton in the first place. At this stage in his career, the 38-year-old Dalton will not make any drastic improvements to his game with added playing time. The player that has a chance to grow while simultaneously enhancing his trade value is Tanner McKee.

Also consider that based on Philadelphia’s play calls for the first three plays with Dalton in the lineup, it appeared offensive coordinator Sean Mannion had little to no interest in putting the ball in Dalton’s hands unless absolutely necessary. With such little confidence in Dalton, why wasn’t McKee in the game?

Coach Sirianni started the season with Dalton as the Eagles’ primary backup quarterback based on his belief that Dalton simply beat McKee out for the job in training camp and the preseason. If the offensive coordinator can’t trust Dalton with the ball in his hands, and the one throw he does make was a critical interception in the end zone, the backup quarterback role clearly needs to be re-evaluated.

If McKee will be traded at some point this year, it is going to be awfully hard to convince a team to trade valuable draft capital for him as he rots away on the bench behind a seemingly washed-up Dalton. McKee is in the last year of his rookie contract, which will make him an unrestricted free agent in 2027. In other words, the clock is ticking on Philadelphia to decided what to do with McKee.

The Giants traded a 2027 fifth-round draft choice for fledgling signal caller J.J. McCarthy on Monday. I think that trade essentially sets the market for McKee moving forward. Any notion that a team would relinquish a second or third-round choice for a seldom used backup is foolish at this point. I can’t see the Eagles fetching much more than a fourth or fifth-round choice for McKee if he continues to languish on the Eagles bench.