October 18, 2026
Eric Hartline/IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
Tanner McKee could not shake Bobby Okereke away on Sunday.
Sorry if you had any blind hope that a 'Tanner McKee Game' might save the Eagles' season.
Sorry if you had any hope left that this Eagles season could still be saved.
But Tanner McKee isn't that fan-favorite, ace-in-the-hole kind of backup anymore, and the Eagles just aren't that ever-persevering, 'next man up' kind of team anymore.
They're spent. It's over.
The Eagles lost to the Panthers, 25-14, in a return to Lincoln Financial Field on Sunday, dropping to 2-4 with a fourth consecutive loss, and with maybe their most aimless effort yet.
McKee wasn't a spark plug replacement for starting quarterback Jalen Hurts, who is out indefinitely now with a blood clot.
He couldn't compensate for Carolina pass rusher Bobby Okereke turnstiling Tyler Steen and Jake Majors for immediate pressure – first with a sack for an 11-yard loss right off the bat, and then rushes that hurried McKee into making dead-on-arrival decisions with the ball, or to send him scrambling out of the pocket with nowhere else to go.
He couldn't compensate for a non-existent run game, an offensive scheme that couldn't leave the easily stopped swing and screen passes behind, or four out of six first-half possessions that ended up behind the sticks at one point or another, either because of a tackle for a loss or a crushing flag that sent them back.
And he couldn't lead drives that answered for running back Chuba Hubbard trucking forward at will, while quarterback Bryce Young connected with top targets Tetairoa McMillan, Jalen Coker, and then Tommy Tremble to ice it, all on chunk plays through holes in the Eagles' secondary whenever the Panthers had the ball.
McKee and the Eagles scored a touchdown on Sunday that, really, was gifted to them late in the first half, when Dallas Goedert drew a 22-yard defensive pass interference call for getting his pants pulled down while trying to break on a route for a pass that he never had a shot at catching in the end zone anyway.
Maybe it was out of pity, and then genuine surprise that Dameon Pierce, the only usable running back left on the roster, actually punched it in a couple of tries later.
But there was little else doing for the Eagles otherwise, save for a fourth-quarter toss-up from McKee to DeVonta Smith for a touchdown that briefly made it a five-point game. Nothing came of it, though. Majors botched the next snap into the grass and under McKee's hands, and Philly went three-and-out with a blocked punt on 4th and 18.
Carolina pulled away from there.
Tanner McKee could never get into a sustained rhythm on Sunday. The looks weren't there, or the time.
McKee went 26-for-45 passing with 215 yards and that one touchdown throw to Smith. He was sacked three times, and it never looked like the Panthers' defense was afraid of anything that he and the Eagles could do. Granted, what was there left to even be threatened by?
He's not Koy Detmer or A.J. Feeley at the Vet in 2002, keeping an NFC Championship Game run going without a hitch – there's no stout Jim Johnson defense or a sound Andy Reid offensive structure to boost him or the team.
He's not Jeff Garcia in 2006, either, when he steadied a stumbling team in the wake of a season-ending injury to Donovan McNabb to rally them to the playoffs anyway.
He sure as hell isn't a Nick Foles in 2017 – that's a one-in-a-lifetime exception.
But the thing is, he's not even the dependable backup who can still manage a well-rounded roster to a steady win if and when his number gets called, like he was so confidently trusted to do for a concussed Jalen Hurts and then a sidelined Kenny Pickett just a couple of years ago.
On Sunday, McKee was a backup quarterback who was hurried, inaccurate, and out of his depth – even though the Eagles' many problems now are hardly all on him, far, far from it.
But he was the guy who, still somewhat inexplicably, lost favor over the offseason to a point where the Eagles wanted a washed Andy Dalton as the original No. 2 option behind Hurts this year instead of him, until that royally blew up in their face against Chicago in Week 3.
And on Sunday, he was the guy leading a heavily banged-up, woefully uncreative, and now apathetically aimless Eagles team nowhere, just waiting for that clock to finally hit zero – maybe out of mercy.
If anything, McKee is way closer to Mike McMahon in 2005 right now.
And if you remember that name, then you'll remember how miserable and directionless that season got, which originally carried so much hope of getting back to the Super Bowl.
And maybe that's how you're beginning to feel about the 2026 Eagles, if you're not there already.
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