Football at Four: What To Expect From Eagles QB Tanner McKee Against The Panthers?

This is Football at Four. Anytime a blood clot is involved, it easily could involve multiple weeks. Let's hope it's not progressing. Let's hope he doesn't have to be on long-term anticoagulants, or it could have a huge impact. Always safety first. So far, the Eagles statement means there's no shenanigans. They seem to come clean with everything. They weren't hiding anything from the world. It's a surprise to them as well. It does explain the unusual calf injury that Jalen Hurts was referring to. That is Dr. David Chow, and we will have him on tonight at 530, and he can give us more details on what is going on with Jalen Hurts. But the news today, he is out for the game against the Carolina Panthers. Tanner McKee will start for the Birds. And what does that mean? It's Football at Four. Adam Caplan is here today, powered by the Inside the Birds Podcast right here on the Sports Bash. And don't forget, you can listen to the Inside the Birds Podcast on all podcasting platforms. Well, quite the news today, Adam. This looked like a Phillies dominated day with Dave Dombroski. And he said he didn't want to announce the Mattingly news because the Eagles were playing over the weekend. So that's why they held off. But the Eagles today, they have the big news as Jalen Hurts will miss the game. He has a blood clot. And this really could change potentially the season for Philadelphia. Yeah. I mean, you know, Geoff and I did an emergency show. And I could tell you from personal experience, I didn't have quite a blood clot. But I was on blood thinners years ago. And I remember being told there are only certain things I'd be allowed to do. And you got to be careful. You don't want to bleed. You got to go to the hospital. I got really scared. But my situation happened. Actually, I woke up with a terribly bad ankle. And it was very odd. And I had a bunch of testing. And then I went up having to be on blood thinners and something else. So it's pretty scary. See, Mike, if you look at the statement, getting over to hurts here, the last paragraph of the statement is the one that's troubling. The plot moved. Because he was able to play through it, he got cleared. But then it moved later on after the game. So that concerned them. And he's going to be, he's not day to day, he's week to week. I could tell you that someone has been on, has had something similar, like you can't get clear until it clears. And Dr. Schaak has texted me, so we're texting each other back a little bit. So, yeah, it's scary, Mike. This is just bad news, but you'll be okay. They just got to get the thing cleared up, but we wish them well. And yeah, Tanner McKee, and by the way, my understanding, when they don't, if they'd like to bring him back, they're working on it. But he has interest elsewhere, so he may not be coming back. So right now, Col Payton, Mike is the backup quarterback. Oh, if McKee gets hurt, they have to have a third, like they're going to have to add another quarterback to have a choice here. The other thing is you have to add somebody who knows the system. The West Coast is the verbiage system. It's not the number system. So that's the issue now, is they're going to have to find somebody, Mike, right now, who knows the system. They're in a tough bind right now, no doubt. Remember, this is, Mike, whoever comes in and they need to have someone by tomorrow, they may not, he may only get the Saturday walkthrough. Who knows if they could get someone by tomorrow? Right, I mean, their injury list, too, by the way, is like a CVS receipt. I mean, there was 24 names on that list the other night. And how many of those guys are even in peril, can play, won't play, but Hertz being at it today. I think when we saw Caff last week, people probably didn't think all that much of it because he played. Then he has two carries for two yards. It might really tell you a little bit more in the way he answered that question about why he didn't run as much. Right, so, Mike, you know, I did, I brought this up on our show this morning that I didn't mention it because we were going over the injuries. I said I wanted to explain to people the way it works with injury reports. And it's interesting that the Eagles statement kind of clarified it. So what happened was Jalen said, the Eagles said in their statement, Hurts got treatment after Thursday's practice when he talked to the staff about it. Now, some teams, Mike, will issue an addendum to the, they'll actually, like the Rams did last night, they made an addition to the injury reports so they also came out, actually came out after I went to sleep. So, some teams do this, like they'll, they won't wait till after Friday's practice, they'll just put it after Thursday's practice. So the Eagles didn't, they added there, they added Hurts last week, but we took the whole practice in full. So the rule that our Geoff Mosher got clarified when he emailed the league a couple years ago, as long as the player takes all the ones, like he takes a full practice, you're not required to list it on the injury report, which I think is complete nonsense. It used to be the opposite. If you get any treatment for the injury, the old rules that you had to be listed on it. So they relaxed it. So anyway, yeah, now a lot, look, over half of them, almost over half of them were listed on last week's injury report. So we need to make that clear. Now, the ones that, as I told you on Tuesday, I said be very careful of thinking that Hurts is, that Devontae Smith is playing this week. My understanding was different than other people are guessing out there. I didn't agree with it. But what I didn't know is that he's got a toe injury, Mike, in addition to the hamstring injury. He's working on, or Andrew DiCecco, that he was working on an adjacent field at practice today. So not looking good for him, not looking good for Barclay. Mike, I don't know what they got to help Tanner McKee, but we got to see who's going to be the backfield. I mentioned on our show this morning, why in the world can they not get Carson to steal the football, like you did, as you and I talked about on Tuesday. Absolutely, and by the way, Tanner McKee will be the quarterback. He will start, how does that change the offense? How does it change the calls? What's different now that you can do with Tanner McKee that maybe you can't do with Jalen Hurts? All right, a couple of things here that folks should know, let me explain a little bit deeper that we have a couple of minutes here. So, Tanner McKee, his first year, prior to his breakout game against Baltimore in his rookie season, he looked so stiff in his drop back, didn't move very well, honestly, he looked like he had no chance. And as things had happened, you can't really explain, all of a sudden, he started looking like an NFL quarterback against Baltimore, and absolutely earned it, because you were not going to put him through waivers because he looked so good in the preseason. So, he was on his spot, and then he looked really good the following spring, where you're like, wow, this guy could be, hurts his long-term backup. And he looked really good, so we fast forward to where the regressions started in the game against the Commandos. Week 18 here, Mike, you looked bad. Right. I mean, it just didn't look, and now that was in the old scheme. Yeah. Now, look, he's playing with backups, that may have been part of it. You didn't look good, but Mike, the damning thing is, they moved to West Coast Terminology, which is the verbiage system, Siriannis is the numbering system, and I don't know what happened, but he seemed to be overthinking, not driving the ball down field like we used to see from him for two years, and he just looked bad. So right now, it's Tanner McKee, Mike, and this is the final year of his rookie deal. He just doesn't look like the same guy. Now, look, anything could happen, right? Anything could happen. Let's hope Wicks' hamster injury, which he had two weeks ago. He wasn't listed with it last week, but he's back on the entry report this week. Let's hope he's okay to play. I thought Mackay Lemon looked better last week. That might have been his best game in terms of movement. Yes, we know about the bad play he had going out of bounds, but in terms of being a factor, and we talked, you and I talked about Tuesday, getting Garris Cooper more involved. Goddard is not even on the entry report coming out of the game. That's one of the best positive injury pieces of news. You should note that. Well, I would ask you, Adam, on Friday, we did joke about Carson Steele that he caught all these passes. A lot of them in the backfield, you know, Andy Dalton. McKee and Dalton, though, were the guys kind of engineering a lot of those drives. So could you see some more check downs? I didn't think about that. So, okay, so let's extrapolate. Will McKee check it down on him? He is, Jalen has the same affliction that his predecessor, Carson Wentz, had. Wentz did not like to check the ball down. It would drive us crazy on Inside the Birds, particularly in 2019, when Carson went to regress. And it hurts, he just doesn't, he rarely checks it down. And as Marty Moorningweg, the former Eagles offensive coordinator told me, there is a check down on every single drop back. You just have to know where the guy is. It's like the hot receiver, check down, whatever you want to call it, it's in there. You've got to take it, and you've got to take it quickly or it will evaporate. And Jalen, as we pointed out in Inside the Birds repeatedly last year, ruined the progression. He just wouldn't check the ball down sometimes when it was there. So it's a good point with McKee, especially checking the ball down. He's probably more willing to do it. Got to use it. Carson Steele is that guy. I'm not saying pick him up for fantasy, folks, but to be clear, because I know people know him and follow him in the fantasy business. But David Pierce looked bad, Mike, other than the six-yard run, which is well designed. He's stiff, he's just not explosive. Carson Steele had one year at Ball State at over 15 yards. Over the years he was there, they transferred to UCLA. So let's see what he has on Sunday. Real quick, Adam, we talked about this laundry list of injuries. What's the feel on Landon Dickerson? That was a weird day he had yesterday. Yeah, his press conference. If someone tells me I need to listen to something, if they heard something interesting, I'll listen. Odd thing this year, I don't know what to make of it. In an odd way, Willie Lampkin, Willie Lampkin stands over here in Inside the Birds, but we know what he is. He's too short. He's not a starting quality player. To be clear, I heard what you asked, Geoff. What the Eagles would like to know about however long he plays, could he be the top backup interior lineman going into the offseason? That would be great. Like, this is a great waiver claim they got from the Rams, but he's not a starting player. So, Landon Dickerson, I know some people say, oh, he's finished, he's washed. He might be, but they need to find that out if he's healthy enough to play. But they need to find that out and then you, those folks would be right, but here's what I do know. The coaches think Michael Morris is so not ready to play, he put in Fred Johnson at guard, he's never played in his life. So he had a minimal amount of practice late in training camp. He's not a guard, the Eagles know that. So it's kind of a mess. And how about the Eagles, Mike, also, one more no for you? They have not worked out a player this week. Can you explain that? Not with the 24 players on your injury list. Why? No. I don't get it. No, that's crazy. Also, obviously, the Eagles at home this week against the Carolina Panthers and they will not have Jalen Hurts in the game. You heard Adam, likely, no Barkley, no Smith. I'm trying to think. What a miracle. Barkley, you're great at around 24 hours. The other guy that I have on my list is Grenard. I'm not looking better, Mike. I want to see Friday is a big thing for me for a veteran player. Whatever that full practice means for him, because the conditioning, as Vic Fancius said, when Grenard was cleared to come back, he said it would be a while before he played a full complement of snaps. Obviously, coming off an act injury is not going to do that. That's the problem. Even if he gets cleared to play, we have no idea how many snaps he can handle. Remember, with Jalex Hunt's injury, Nolan Smith and Grenard and Eponessa is not a pass thrusher, really. Jahad Campbell did take edge rush snaps, as we noted on Inside the Tape. On their practice squad, they don't really have anyone. Gishon James Newby was cut as the 7th rounder, he cleared waivers. They don't really have anyone, Mike. They're in a tough way, man. And how about the Panthers now are one and a half point favorite? How about that? Yeah, that line took a shift because of the Hertz News, which came down. Actually, before that, Mike, real quick, this morning I saw it. It moved to one and a half before the news came out. And I think it's, what, to three and a half or four points now? Something like that? Yep, it's moved to about four from where it opened to where it is now. So Jalen Hertz out for the game and possibly, we would imagine, longer than just one week here with this superficial blood clot that he has in his calf. All right, Adam Caplan today for the Football at Four, Eagles Carolina. Listen to the game right here on 973 ESPN and check out the Inside the Birds Podcast on all podcasting platforms. Thanks Adam. Thank you.