Who will back up Jalen Hurts when the season opens on Sunday? The Eagles are keeping it close to the vest.
Tanner McKee or Andy Dalton? We don't know who the primary backup is to Jalen Hurts, and we won't necessarily know on Sunday either.
Nick Sirianni answered the question of who the Eagles backup quarterback is the way he was always going to answer it when he was asked on Wednesday.
“We don’t have to make that decision quite yet or announce that decision,” Sirianni said before the Eagles hit the practice field for the first time this week ahead of their Sunday season opener vs. the Washington Commanders. “I think for competitive reasons, again, I don’t want them to be able to study one guy over the other. I’m not saying we don’t have an answer of who that is yet, but I just don’t have to share that quite yet publicly.”
The answer, it seems, hasn’t been shared internally either. That, or both Andy Dalton and Tanner McKee have World Series of Poker-ready poker faces.
“It’s not that I’m actually trying to keep it from you guys, I really don’t know what that plan is,” McKee said Wednesday after practice.
Dalton’s answer was similar: “I haven’t been told anything,” the veteran quarterback said.
The Eagles kept four quarterbacks on their initial 53-man roster after training camp ended. Neither Dalton nor McKee ran away as the victor in the backup quarterback competition, and neither became an attractive enough trade target. So the Eagles went with four, and all indications are that they’ll likely still have all four around when the Commanders come to town on Sunday.
“I think all of us have a ton of trust in Howie [Roseman] and what he’s doing and obviously we all want the best for the team,” McKee said. “I love our quarterback room, so I was happy to have everybody there. But it was kind of interesting. Obviously they have a plan.”
The plan will be revealed to the participants later in the week, they think. It might not become public until the Eagles designate an emergency third quarterback on their game day roster, and may not become public at all if they make all three part of the 48-player roster for the game and Jalen Hurts plays all the snaps.
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It’s a little weird, though McKee, who is in the final year of his rookie contract, didn’t necessarily agree with that adjective.
“I wouldn’t say weird,” he said. “At this point you’re used to it. Every single year you compete with someone. It’s nice to have somebody like Andy to compete against because I feel like we have a really good relationship, but at the same time when you’re on the field you want to beat out the guy next to you. I think we both understand that, we both realize that. We can talk about our families and sit next to each other in the locker room and have great conversations.”
Dalton, for whom the Eagles traded a seventh-round pick during the offseason, said this is the first time in his 16-season NFL career that he doesn’t really know his role this late in the proceedings. He was a starter for 12 seasons before transitioning into a reserve role. But the 38-year-old said he wasn’t surprised when all four quarterbacks — rookie fifth-round pick Cole Payton is also on the roster — were on the initial list of 53 names.
“Talking with them, they said there was a possibility of that happening and there were scenarios where that would be the case,” he said.
The lack of a defined role doesn’t change Dalton’s preparation, he said.
“I’ve prepared the same way my whole career,” Dalton said. “I know my routine, I’ve got a process that I go through every day each week. That doesn’t change anything.”
Regardless if he’s No. 2 or No. 3, Dalton said he does know what his role is on a macro level.
“Just having my experience and asking the right questions in the meetings and sparking the right conversations,” he said. “For me, it’s an understanding that I make sure I know everything that I need to know, but also for the room, make sure everybody is on the same page.”
Dalton and McKee have shared some laughs through it all, joking about who may be first up behind Hurts on any given day.
“We’re in good spirits with it all and we’ll see how it all shakes out,” Dalton said.
