The Eagles and Tanner McKee, Jimmy Rollins and Philly fans, and other thoughts

First and final thoughts …

The idea that the Eagles should trade, or should even consider trading, Tanner McKee before the end of this season is so ridiculous that it’s hardly worth acknowledging.

McKee is a perfect example of why NFL franchises (smart ones, anyway) try to hoard quarterbacks. You draft them. You sign them. You do your best to develop them. One of them might turn out to be a valuable trade chip. Another might turn out to be a diamond-in-the-rough starter. The position is that important. McKee, a sixth-round pick in 2023, has played so well in the opportunities he’s gotten — the last three preseasons, a couple of games late last season — that he’s now the Eagles’ clear No. 2 QB and could command a healthy return from a team desperate for a decent quarterback.

Except …

The Eagles are the defending Super Bowl champions, are good enough to repeat, and already have collected 13 picks (including compensatory picks) in next year’s draft. They’ve set themselves up well enough for the present and the future that they can afford to hold on to McKee.

Jalen Hurts has missed at least one game to injury in three of his four full seasons as the Eagles’ starting quarterback. He might stay healthy for all 17 regular-season games and throughout the playoffs. But if he doesn’t, do the Eagles really want to go to either Dorian Thompson-Robinson or Kyle McCord to keep them afloat?

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No franchise better recognizes and understands the value of having an excellent backup quarterback than the Eagles. Nick Foles won a Super Bowl. Michael Vick, Jeff Garcia, and A.J. Feeley helped them reach and advance in the playoffs. Even Hurts himself, when the Eagles drafted him in 2020, was supposed to be a low-cost, high-reward backup to Carson Wentz, and he turned out to be a star.

Any of those factors would be enough to justify keeping McKee. All of them make the notion of trading him the topic of a pointless debate, nothing more.

No one has ever described the relationship between Philadelphia’s athletes and its fans better than Jimmy Rollins did last Tuesday during a panel discussion on TBS. Rollins had been asked about his speech during his Phillies Wall of Fame ceremony, and his remarks to the panel are worth quoting in full:

“I tell young players and anyone else coming to Philadelphia … We’re just leasing this jersey. It’s a rental for us. At the end of the day, at the end of the season, we go home and live our normal lives. When we retire, we go back and do what we want to do. Those fans are going to be there for that next generation of players [who are] putting on that uniform — with that same passion, with those same demands.

“It’s a family. You can talk about your family, talk about your mom, dad, brother, whatever. But if somebody else does it, then they’re in trouble. That’s why I wanted to get the point across. They’re going to be hard on you. Don’t be soft. Don’t let it get to you. No, they want the best. They don’t hate you. They don’t want to see you do bad. It’s like, ‘Why can’t you do better?’ And we play in a sport that’s full of failure. We accept that within ourselves, within our group. The fans will never accept that. They’re there to see you do one thing; that’s win. … I always remember: They want to be entertained, and there’s nothing more entertaining than winning.”

Ahead of the Phillies’ game Sunday against the Texas Rangers, Brandon Marsh had a higher on-base-plus-slugging percentage than Trea Turner, Nick Castellanos, J.T. Realmuto, Alec Bohm, and Bryson Stott. That fact indicates two things: 1) just how far Marsh has come since his 4-for-42 start to this season, and 2) just how inconsistent the Phillies’ lineup, apart from Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper (lately), has been.

Based on the coverage and reaction to the first week of the NFL preseason, we media members should all feel privileged to be on hand for the Eagles-Browns joint practices Wednesday and Thursday at the NovaCare Complex. We’ll get to see the league’s two best quarterbacks: Tanner McKee and Shedeur Sanders.

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A year ago Sunday, in the gold-medal game of the men’s basketball tournament at the Summer Olympics in Paris, Joel Embiid played 11 minutes, missed the only shot he took from the field, and was booed by the crowd inside Bercy Arena.

“If I was not Joel Embiid, I would not be receiving that treatment,” he said after the game. “So it feels good to be Joel Embiid, and it feels good to win.”

Gosh, kind of a lot’s happened since then.