‘Overwhelmed? Struggling? Falling behind?' Not in Tanner McKee's vocabulary
‘Overwhelmed? Struggling? Falling behind?' Not in Tanner McKee's vocabulary originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
How often have you heard a rookie quarterback talk about feeling overwhelmed? Feeling lost. Feeling like they’re drowning under the weight of a new offense, new coaches, new teammates and new plays.
This story is a little different.
Meet Tanner McKee. He went to Stanford. He’s smart.
Overwhelmed? Think again.
“Honestly, I feel pretty good,” the Eagles’ sixth-round rookie said after practice Thursday. “I feel like we ran a pretty complicated offense at Stanford or a very pro-style offense. So I feel like there's a ton of similarities in things that we do.”
The Eagles haven’t had the best results with their young quarterbacks in recent years.
Think of some of the names who’ve made their way in and out of the quarterback factory.
McLeod Bethel-Thompson, Matt McGloin, Christian Hackenberg, Dane Evans, Clayton Thorson, Nick Mullens, Carson Strong, Reid Sinnett.
McKee is like the rest of them in that he’s a longshot. He was the 188th player taken overall this year and the 13th quarterback.
But he sure looks the part at 6-foot-6, 230 pounds with a solid arm. And a mind that seems to be able to process what a lot of young QBs can’t.
“For me, the biggest thing is hearing it in the headset and being able to regurgitate it,” he said. “We have wristbands, which is nice, but it's a little different when you can just visualize it, reading it or when you have to visualize it when you're hearing it through the headset.
“So that was an adjustment for me that I had to get through. But other than that, I mean, football is football. There's going to be kills, there’s going to be checks, there's going to be a lot of things that are going to be on your mind, but I feel like that's kind of expected as a quarterback and what you need to have a successful offense.”
When a quarterback is able to grasp the offense quickly, he’s able to perform at a higher level. And while McKee hasn’t exactly lit it up so far, he’s looked comfortable and confident and has made more plays than you see from most guys in his position.
“I feel like as a quarterback, as an athlete, when everything's happening, second nature, you play so much better,” he said. “Whenever you're thinking about the plays or thinking about things, you don't play free and you don't play great when you're thinking about, you know, ‘What should I run? Was it really this step or what should I do?’ When you can go out and play ball? It's huge. So spending the time, spending the extra time in the film room is huge for me.”
McKee completed 63 percent of his passes for over 5,000 yards with 28 TDs and 15 TDs in two years as a starter in Palo Alto.
Make no mistake about it, he’s a long-range project, and there’s no lock he’ll even beat out Ian Book for the No. 3 spot. Book is a former Saints fourth-round pick now in his third season.
But McKee has been fine the first few days of training camp. Reminds you of Nate Sudfeld in his ability to pick things up quickly. Not surprisingly, Sudfeld is now entering his eighth season as a sixth-round pick.
“Just throwing as much as possible at him, trying to just get a feel for (his) capacity,” offensive coordinator Brian Johnson said. “It's always very difficult learning a new system. I think one of the things that ends up happening is, especially if you've been in the college system for four years of trying to say, ‘OK, this concept is how we called it here,’ and just translating the language.
“That becomes to me the biggest challenge, but I think Tanner has done a great job. Coach (Alex) Tanney has done a great job of getting him ready to come out here and know what to do.”
Just because McKee has been able to handle the offense so far doesn’t mean the NFL isn’t a huge adjustment.
“The speed of the game is obviously different,” McKee said. “Everybody’s big, everybody’s fast. In college, you always have one or two guys you can gameplan around and say these are NFL guys. Then you get out here and you realize all 11 guys are like that.
“It’s a lot of fun as a quarterback. It’s a quarterback’s dream.”
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