The task of breaking a three-game losing streak and keeping the Philadelphia Eagles afloat in the NFC East falls not on Jalen Hurts in Week 6 but rather on Tanner McKee, a fourth-year backup primed for the biggest opportunity of his NFL career. Hurts is out for the matchup against the Carolina Panthers due to a superficial blood clot, which developed after the Week 4 loss to the Los Angeles Rams and moved following last week's trip to London, resulting in his unavailability for Sunday. While the Eagles do have a third option in rookie Cole Payton, the expectation is that McKee will trot out with the offense when they return to Lincoln Financial Field.
He served as Hurts' primary backup last year and was the third-stringer in 2024 and made a combined six appearances with two starts. McKee is not entirely unknown in the NFL, considering his pair of previous starts, but this is by far the most prominent role of his career. With so much pressure facing the Eagles in their quest to rebound from a rocky start to the season, McKee will have more eyes on him this weekend than ever before.
Here is everything to know about his football career, from his rise as a highly touted high school recruit to his emergence as Philadelphia's Week 6 starter. McKee landed on the national radar during his junior year at Corona (Calif.) High School. It was the most productive season of his prep career and earned him recognition as a Top247 recruit, and he later climbed as high as No. 38 overall in the 247Sports rankings for the Class of 2018.
McKee closed the recruiting cycle as the top four-star quarterback with only three five-star prospects ahead of him: Trevor Lawrence, Justin Fields and JT Daniels. As a three-sport athlete who also played volleyball and basketball at Centennial, McKee's future was always in football, and he elevated his stock with strong showings on the all-star circuit. He won the MVP award at the 2018 Polynesian Bowl, earned a spot in the U.S.
Army All-American Bowl and reached the finals at both The Opening and Elite 11. McKee already held scholarship offers from myriad Power Five schools when Stanford called. Programs across the country sought his talents.
Even though Stanford was his ultimate choice and much closer to home than the other programs he was interested in, it was not an open-and-shut case that he would end up with the Cardinal. Stanford was the last school to extend him an offer and the penultimate school to welcome him for an official visit. By the time he took his official visit in January 2018, he had already been on campus for regular-season games at Texas, Texas A&M, Alabama and Washington.
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