BALTIMORE — The Eagles haven’t publicly said who the No. 2 quarterback is, and they still aren’t after one preseason game. It’s early, Nick Sirianni has said, and both Andy Dalton and Tanner McKee have taken reps with the second-team offense during the 11 training camp practices, though Dalton seemingly has at times taken more than McKee.
Nothing reveals the standing of a depth chart quite the way a game does, though.
The Eagles made their pecking order public when Andy Dalton trotted onto the M&T Bank Stadium field at 7:07 p.m. with Saturday’s starters. (The Eagles rested all of their projected starters on offense.)
But his lone quarter of action — three series without the offense gaining a first down — did little to show his status as the No. 2 is above scrutiny.
With the necessary caveats that Saturday night was the first preseason game, and few regulars dressed, and the game itself was entirely meaningless, the Sean Mannion era got underway with Dalton at quarterback, two penalties on four attempted plays, and an eventual punt after netting three yards.
Dalton’s next two drives ended in three-and-outs. There appeared to be some miscommunication between the 38-year-old veteran and second-year receiver Darius Cooper during the second series, and the third ended when Cooper dropped a third-and-5 timing throw from Dalton. The pass may have been thrown a little bit too hard, but it was a catch Cooper surely wanted back.
That was Dalton’s last snap of the game. He finished the night having completed three of his six passes for 20 yards. His quarterback rating was 57.6, and the offense netted 27 yards on nine plays with Dalton as the quarterback.
McKee was next up, and the Eagles gave their 2025 backup quarterback some extended run. The offense performed only mildly better.
We saw elements of the new-look offense under Mannion from the beginning of the game. The Eagles utilized more motion, and their quarterbacks took more snaps from under center. Their running backs ran more outside zone runs.
But it was a rough night for the offense overall. Of course, the Eagles aren’t going to be putting anything they want to keep close to the vest on film, but they failed to move the football with their vanilla stuff.
“We have a lot of mistakes that we put on film,” McKee said. “I’m included in that as well. As long as we don’t make those same mistakes, I think it’s going to be a positive. With a new offense, with so many things that are new, mistakes are obviously going to happen. That many is unacceptable, but we’re going to learn from it and be better.”
McKee got himself into a manageable third down on his first set of downs. He rolled left after faking a handoff and found Britain Covey in space to pick up four yards on a second-and-7 play. But the ensuing third-and-3 throw was too high for Grant Calcaterra on the sideline.
The running game got going on the next drive. Will Shipley started the drive with an 8-yard run before McKee connected with Cooper on a slant for 13 yards. It was the Eagles’ first first down of the day, and it came on their 14th play from scrimmage. A few Shipley runs moved the Eagles into Ravens territory midway through the second quarter, but a Jake Majors holding penalty pushed the Eagles back to their end of the field. The Eagles eventually punted after McKee couldn’t connect with Danny Gray on a third-and-12 throw.
After a brief, two-play drive before halftime, McKee returned for the third quarter and was sacked on third-and-7 on the Eagles’ first drive of the second half. The subsequent drive ended when McKee fired too high for Cooper on the right sideline.
McKee, who broke out and became the bona fide No. 2 last year during camp, exited after the third quarter with the Eagles trailing, 17-0, and behind in the first down department, 26-2 (it got to 30-2). He finished the night 6-for-10 for 35 yards with a 66.7 rating before giving way to rookie fifth-round pick Cole Payton. Payton quickly went three-and-out in his first series as a pro but led the team’s only scoring drive in garbage time, culminating in a 6-yard touchdown pass to Erik Ezukanma and the 24-7 final score.
What did it all mean? Perhaps not much, though if you were looking to be inspired by the new-look offense, which had two pretty experienced quarterbacks operating it for the first three quarters, you probably had a rough Saturday night.
On a night where the Eagles played a football game for the first time in eight months, their intriguing backup quarterback race was a bit of a snoozer.
The players were told a few days ago, they said, how the order would go Saturday night, but Dalton said the coaching staff said things could change week to week.
“I think it’s still a competition,” Dalton said. “It’s going back and forth the whole time, so I don’t know where this whole thing is going to go.”
Time is not yet of the essence. The Eagles return to the practice field Monday before heading up to New England for two joint practices vs. the Patriots and another preseason game there next Saturday.
It still remains hard to believe the Eagles keep both Dalton and McKee, which would have to happen either by cutting Payton or by keeping four quarterbacks. There is plenty of tape out there on both of them, but the film Saturday likely wasn’t going to make any team want to jump at the opportunity to part with draft capital to acquire one of them — a result Howie Roseman probably is hoping for before camp breaks.
There’s still time before then.
“I’ll let the coaches decide that,” McKee said. “My job is to go out and play when they call my number. How that’s going, I’m going to put in the work, do the extra stuff, do everything I can to have my case of why I believe I should be the backup, but ultimately the decision falls on the coaches.”
