Sure looks like Kenny Pickett should be demoted by Eagles before the NFL playoffs

When Jalen Hurts suffered a concussion in the Philadelphia Eagles' Week 16 loss to the Washington Commanders, it opened the door for former Pittsburgh Steelers first-rounder Kenny Pickett to get some revenge on all the naysayers who had already labeled him a massive bust. But that revenge turned out to be short-lived: After an up-and-down performance down the stretch against Washington, Pickett was playing well enough the next week against the Dallas Cowboys when a rib injury knocked him out of the game.

And now it sure looks like Pickett may never get another chance — at least not in Philly, anyway. With Pickett on the shelf, the Eagles turned to third-stringer Tanner McKee for a meaningless Week 18 game against the New York Giants. And while there was nothing at stake for the team's playoff positioning, McKee made a pretty compelling case that he deserves to be Hurts' backup starting next weekend.

Tanner McKee aces audition to be Jalen Hurts' backup in Week 18

McKee went 6-16 over two years as the starter at Stanford, completing 63.2 percent of his passes at 7.1 yards per attempt with 28 touchdowns to 15 interceptions. That's hardly anything to write home about, but the Cardinal didn't exactly put a ton of talent around him, and McKee's physical gifts — he's listed at 6-foot-6, 231 pounds — were enough for Philly to draft him in the sixth round of the 2023 NFL Draft.

McKee spent most of the past two years on the practice squad, not throwing a single pass in a regular-season game. But on Sunday, he finally got his chance, and man is he delivering.

McKee did his best Nick Foles impression against New York, throwing for 240 yards and two touchdowns to help the Eagles build a 17-3 lead in the fourth quarter. But more importantly for Philly moving forward, he seemed to be in total command of the offense, and it was immediately apparent that he has more arm talent than Pickett could ever dream of.

The Eagles will hope that this is a moot point; it's hard to see Philly winning a Super Bowl without Hurts healthy and starting the whole way. But at this point, you'd be hard-pressed to make the argument for Pickett as a more deserving backup than McKee. Sure, Pickett is technically more experienced, but it's not as though he's used that experience to improve his game over the past few years; he still makes the sort of bone-headed decisions that got him run out of Pittsburgh, and he's never been the biggest or the strongest quarterback. McKee, on the other hand, would offer Philly at least a fighting chance if Hurts were to go down.