{"id":649982,"date":"2026-01-03T06:12:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T06:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/649982\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T06:12:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T06:12:16","slug":"tanner-mckee-reveals-how-hes-preparing-for-week-18-vs-commanders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/649982\/","title":{"rendered":"Tanner McKee reveals how he’s preparing for Week 18 vs. Commanders"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Philadelphia Eagles<\/a> held off the Buffalo Bills in Week 17, improving to 11-5 with their third straight win. Despite an inconsistent offense, the team has already clinched the NFC East<\/a> and will host a playoff game. While Philadelphia could move up to the No. 2 seed, it can\u2019t fall lower than No. 3.<\/p>\n

With that in mind, the Eagles have decided that rest is more important than seeding at this point. The team will create a bye for banged up players in Week 18. And Tanner McKee will start<\/a> in place of Jalen Hurts<\/a> in the regular season finale. It will be McKee\u2019s first start since Week 18 last season. But the third-year backup is confident he’ll be ready for the moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like, in general, I try to prepare like I\u2019m going to be the starter. So as far as preparation, things didn\u2019t change that much because I feel like I prepare that way every week,\u2019 McKee said, via David Neisz. \u201cBut last night I was going through the call sheet a few times and just running things in every single possible scenario that we could get. Just so I could go out and not think and just play with second nature,\u201d McKee explained.<\/p>\n

Tanner McKee draws second career start in Week 18\"PhiladelphiaEric Hartline-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

The Eagles\u2019 offensive struggles<\/a> cropped up again in Week 17. Philadelphia jumped out to a 13-0 lead at halftime but the team got shut out in the second half. Philly scored zero points while gaining just 17 yards in the final two quarters, relying on a stout defense to grind out a one-point win.<\/p>\n

Hurts has been the primary subject of criticism this year despite leading the Eagles to a championship and winning Super Bowl MVP last season. The veteran QB will finish the year with 3,224 passing yards, a career-high 25 touchdown passes and only six interceptions. However, Hurts has been less productive as a runner this season. His 421 rushing yards and eight scores on the ground are both new lows as a starter.<\/p>\n

McKee will get his chance to lead the Eagles against the Washington Commanders on Sunday. But he\u2019ll be working with Philly\u2019s B-team. Dallas Goedert and Jalen Carter were ruled out<\/a> and a number of other starters will sit in Week 18 as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Philadelphia Eagles held off the Buffalo Bills in Week 17, improving to 11-5 with their third straight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":649983,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2068],"tags":[25,7,492,6,5351,242,109,2476],"class_list":{"0":"post-649982","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-eagles","8":"tag-eagles","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-jalen-hurts","11":"tag-nfl","12":"tag-nick-sirianni","13":"tag-philadelphia","14":"tag-philadelphia-eagles","15":"tag-philadelphiaeagles"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=649982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/649983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}