PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - Emergency Pod: Oh my God, you traded Kenny! Eagles trade Pickett, clear way for Tanner McKee

Episode Date: March 10, 2025

Surprise! Howie Roseman, Nick Sirianni and Jeffrey Lurie saw what we all saw … that Tanner McKee is ready for primetime and deserves the No. 2 job (if not more!). As such, they traded Kenny Pickett to the Cleveland Browns for a fifth-round pick and quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson, keeping the factory humming. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

to an emergency pod, the second of the afternoon. And that's following the three-hour live show we did before Bo-Wolf, Zach Berman, as we have big news. Zach, the Eagles, and I think a reassuring testament to what our eyes see. They saw the same thing, Zach. They have sent Kenny Pickett to the Cleveland Browns in exchange for a fifth round pick, and Dorian Thompson, another quarterback for the factory. But most importantly, this means that they are clearing the way and letting it be known that Tanner McKee, after being the best number three quarterback in the league, is now the best number two quarterback in the league.

Yeah, good deal for the Eagles, good process, and good outcome in all respects. Can he pick it like we can disagree or I shouldn't say disagree. We can kind of quibble on the value he provided last year, but he gave them a backup. with starting experience one more year of development for tanner mckee who they knew less about a year ago than they obviously know now uh tanner mckee is clearly ready to be the backup quarterback it makes sense to have tanner mckee as your backup quarterback now so they basically they traded a year ago they trade uh a fourth round pick or i'm sorry a third round pick for uh they trade a third round pick and then two seventh this year for a fourth round pick and

and Kenny Pickett. So they move back in the draft and they get Kenny Pickett. And now they, now they turn Pickett into a fifth round pick and a developmental quarterback, a project quarterback. I mean, a guy who could be your number three. Maybe he's not on the roster, but still a good guy to get in the trade, a guy who was a draftable quarterback a year ago. I think that's a real good process for the Eagles. It clears the deck for Tanner McKee. It also saves them, you know, $2.6 million, which is not nothing sneeze about either. So frankly, they did better than I thought. When I wrote about this in the 25-step guide, I said they should try to get a sixth-th round pick or move up from the fifth to the fourth. To get a fifth outright, I think that's real good compensation for for Pickett right now.

I think it's already one of High Roseman's best traits ever. Now listen, Kenny Pickett did well when he was called on this year. He did fine. You know, he moved the offense that Washington game when he comes in. If Tabante Smith doesn't drop that ball, he wins that game too. He did fine. He is what the Eagles asked him to be, right? He was a veteran presence with starting experience in case he was called upon. But we also saw Tanner McKee looked better than him. He looked better than him in the summer and he looked better than him when he played in the regular season. Tanner McKee is ready. He is ready to not just be a number two quarterback. I think he could start for James. That's me, you know, editorializing. But,

I really do. It is, we talk about this is the period of time in the NFL when basically the only time when teams have to tell you the truth, right? Because in the draft, it's not necessarily up to them. Things can happen that are out of their control. At this point of the year, when you are in free agency or you are making trades, you're telling the truth because the entire league is open to you. What can you do?

What do you care about? How do you feel about your roster? And it's nice to know that even though, you know, they kept Kenny Pickett as number two, they saw the same thing that we saw that Tanner McKee is, is ready for this opportunity. And I think you're right. The return for Kenny Pickett is a nice pat on the back for the job that you did this year. You filled that role. And to get a fifth round pick and a quarterback who you say in Dorian Thompson Robinson,

is it actually an interesting fit for the Eagles? You know, he let's be fair here. the Cleveland Browns are desperate for a quarterback. They gave him a couple chances, and he did not do very well. I think one touchdown to 10 interceptions in his time with Cleveland, but he has some athletic tools, I think ran like a four or five something at the combine, played a lot of football at UCLA. And so a player who, if you think about, you know,

is there somebody in the offense who could give you some simulacrum of, you know, the Jalen Hertz offense in some situation, this is at least a mobile quarterback who could give you some of that, a player to keep an eye on. As you said, probably is not definitely going to be on the roster, but is the frontrunner for the number three job. That's fine. But this is really about like paving the way for Tarynge McKee, and that's what he deserves. It's good. This is a good deal.

Yeah, it didn't make sense for them to bring both quarterbacks back, right? It was either Brad McKee for a good return, you know, as a guy who could start somewhere else. or trade picket. And I know there were listeners and readers and viewers, viewers, listeners, readers, however we want to frame it in whatever order, who might have been skeptical that the Eagles could get something for Pickett. I thought they could. I didn't know how much they could, but I thought they could.

I think that to get DTR in it, and again, we can quibble about DTR's value, but he is someone that they brought in on a top 30 visit, right? And so when you bring a quarterback in on a top 30 visit, it shows that you are intrigued by him to a certain extent. But you're right. This is about Tanner McKee. And this is about a guy you took day three when it's hard to find a quarterback. You identified him. You developed him.

And now you get two years, presumably two years of a cost-controlled backup quarterback. There is a world in which McKee looks awesome this summer, maybe Jim. one goes down at some point and McKee looks, looks even better and you flip McKee for something more. But I think like the, if the scenario here is you get two years of McKee, that's terrific for the Eagles. I mean, when you just look at what his salary is, the fact that you're getting a draft pick back here and you're getting a potential

third quarterback back. So it's not as if the Eagles, it's not as if the Eagles need to use a day three pick this year on a quarterback. Like, I mean, Thompson. I could have a guy for you this year, right? So, I mean, there's, I try to always say, all right, is there something here I'm missing? Is there is, you know, I, I don't want to be just over the top about everything that they do. But I like the process here.

I like the result. I think McKee's the better backup quarterback. He's the less expensive backup quarterback. And again, I've been saying whenever this conversation has come up and we talked about a full world order. We talked about the quarterback situation after I said, you can't hold last year's return, I'm sorry, last year's price on picket as like what you're going to judge this on. Because you got a year of picket and you got that year of development for McKee. You weren't ready to make McKee the number two last year based on the information that you had.

I think that's right. And as for like the allure of picket for the Browns, I mean, part of it is you see like, you know, Jared Stidham is getting $8 million. or whatever it is to be a backup. I mean, Kenny Pickett is $2.5 million for a capable backup who could start in an emergency. That's good surplus value, right? Do you think that he will be like, you know,

Deshaun Watson's recovering from this injury? You think Kenny Pickett's going to be their weak-one starter? No, I'm still kind of earmarking them as the Kirk Cousins' destination. I think it makes too much sense with Kevin Stefanski's background. I think Stefansky needs to win this year. Stefansky and Kirk Cousins have worked together. There are only going to be so many chairs left for a Cousin straight. I don't know why Atlanta is being so resolute here.

It sounds like it sounds like Watson is going to miss the season. I mean, he retore his Achilles. So I can't, I don't know this, but unless Cleveland takes a quarterback in the first round, which is conceivable, maybe they take. Travis Hunter in the first round or something like that. And then they turn around or they take up to a car or they take somebody in the first round who's not a quarterback and they take a J. J.L. Milro or Shador Sanders. They trade back into round one for Shador Sanders. There's a handful of scenarios here. But I do think that Pickett has a better path to playing time in Cleveland than he does in Philadelphia for sure.

So I think this makes sense for Kenny Pickett. So just so you know, the EPA per dropback, just last year, quarterbacks who attempted at least 40 passes, Tanner McKee number four in the league, after Marcus Marriota number one, then Lamar Jackson and then Jared Goff. And then there are 56 qualifying quarterbacks. Number 55 is Deshaun Watson. Number 56, almost twice as bad was Dorian Thompson last year.

So he did not fare very well last year, but, you know, that's okay. He's not here to be the starter. Yeah. 3.3 net yards per pass attempt from DTR last year. By the way, pick it on that list, 22 sandwiched between Matthew Stafford and Sam Darnold. And like, I know we talk a lot about McKee. You feel utterly confident in McKee's readiness to be if Janwin hurts, Harris's ACL week one, that Tanner McKee can't.

step in and be your starting quarterback? Utterly 100%. Yes. And that's not really a bit. Yeah, that's what I'm asking. Like, it's like the joking aside. Like you feel confident in that. Yes.

I think there are a lot of things you see with Tanner McKee that are awesome. One of them is like just the decisiveness. And like the ball comes out quickly. And, you know, honestly, the numbers bear that out. Again, this is a small sample size, right? He played a game and a half last year. But Jalen Hertz had the longest time to throw in the league last year, okay, for all those quarterbacks.

It took him over three seconds to get rid of the ball. Tanner McKee was the fourth quickest, 2.4 seconds behind, you know, Tua, who is, like, famous for this, and then Tim Boyle and Cooper Rush, who were getting rid of the ball. But he's not just getting rid of the ball, you know, on a quick five-yard throw, right? He's willing to throw the ball downfield. He throws a very catchable ball. Yeah, like I really, really believe in Tanner McKee as a starting caliber quarterback. Yeah, because, and, you know, I see Khalid says Zach, WTF.

It's because when you're a Super Bowl contender, that's the question you have to ask. If you lose your quarterback, you know, are you still, you know, can you still be a good team? And the reality is, as promising as Tanner McKee looked, in the past decade, the only two times that the Eagles have gone into a season with a less experienced quarterback, then Tanner McKee as the backup would be Nate Sudfeld in 19, and they actually brought in Josh McCall because they wanted to make sure that they had more experience there. And then 2020, when they had Hertz and Sudfield, right? Outside of that, they've had an experienced backup quarterback or an experience, you know, well, yeah, an experienced backup quarterback every year, if you include Chase Daniel.

who had like starts when he was the backup. You know, then the next year, Nick Foles, right? They, they've continued, then they had Nick Foles the following year. They've continued to try to seek experience background quarterback. It's the reason why they had Garter, they had Joe Flacco, and they had Gardner Minchu, and then they had Marcus Mariotta. This year, the reason why they traded for Kenny Pickett was that starting experience, right? They valued that.

So there's, they, in Tanner McKee, you have one start at the NFL level. And it was a really promising start. Like, he looked awesome, week 18. But that's, that's what you're going off of if something were to happen to J.O. and Hertz early in the season. Do you think that that calculation changes when your quarterback himself is more experienced? I mean, you think about the last decade of the Eagles, it was always a young quarterback, right, who they were trying to cover for. I don't necessarily think that that's the case, but I wonder if that changes it.

I'm going to change your X word. I think that calculation changes when your quarterback's more expensive. And I think that's ultimately what it is, is that, yeah, it is something when your quarterback's more experienced, that it's true. But when you're, you know, the Eagles are at a point now where Hertz's contracts kicking in. And I think, and not to say that, look, Kenny Pickett wasn't going to cost them a lot this year either. No, but that's, but to your point, that's why they traded for Kenny Pickett last year. and not, you know, signed Chikobi Percette for $8 million. And if you take them at their word and we can debate this,

it was why they drafted jail in Hertz, right? Because Carson's contract was kicking in. They wanted a cost-effective backup quarterback at that time, right? Tanner McKee is as inexpensive of a backup quarterback as any Super Bowl contender will have next season, without a doubt. And I see people saying, talking about the, you know, way that they call the offense being different for McKee and Hertz and that being part of the ball coming out. I think that's only a little bit true. Like, yes, Jalen Hertz can afford to

hold onto the ball more because he is athletic and he can escape pressure. Whereas Tanner McKee, that's not the thing that he's going to do. He's there to get rid of the ball. They're different style of players. And yes, the offense is called differently. But I think that that's more of a function of like what Jalen Hertz likes as opposed to necessarily. something else. For instance, we talked about like the first half of that game that Tanner McKee played as a starter. We saw like the highest rate of play action we have seen all season long. I think that's probably what the offense would have liked to do at certain points. It's just not necessarily what Geelan Hertz wanted. And just to look at these numbers again, again, very small sample size,

but Tanner McKee, 29% of his dropbacks were play action when he played this year. Again, super small, whereas Jillen Hertz was less than 20%. And that's the difference between. you know, sixth in the league and 39th in the league. Yeah. You know, we it's how you started the show. We've said it all along. This is about Tanner McKee.

This is about the way the Eagles feel about Tanner McKee. Tanner McKee has aced every checkpoint they could have last, you know, last season in particular. He looked great in training camp, okay? He plays in the preseason. He looks great in the preseason, I thought. Yeah, I know the third game was a little inconsistent. but the first two games was the better quarterback.

Practice everything we heard behind the scenes, he looked good. But then he gets in, he gets a game and a half and look great in that game and a half. So every checkpoint that they had practice, preseason games, regular season games, Tanner McKee answered the bell. So this trade is absolutely about Tanner McKee. And however, you could say Tanner McKee unseated, Kenny Pickett, You can say they, they, but I think we both agreed that they had two assets here. It didn't make sense to bring both of them back.

They traded the asset that I think had probably less trade value, but they got something for picket here, frankly, more than I thought they would get. And it's just a terrific outcome for the Eagles. Great outcome. And just to close the loop on that, it was not the case that Jalen Hertz was then throwing the ball downfield more. their air yards per attempt or both between 7 and 8 yards. So they were throwing the ball in similar places. Do you think, let's play this out.

Let's say 18 years from now, do you think Tanner McKee's getting that knock on the door from someone who's not David Baker? No, I don't. I don't think Tanner McKee is a Hall of Famer. But, I mean, it wouldn't surprise me if two years from Mount Tanner McKay starting in the NFL somewhere. Do you think there's any path that he's the Eagle starter in three years? Well, I would never say never, but I'm not expecting that.

I mean, I think the, look, there was a, I mean, when Carson went signed his contract extension, I never would have suggested that he wouldn't be the starting quarterback before the contract extension kicked in, right? So J.1 Hurts just won the Super Bowl MVP. I don't see a scenario in the short term with Gerland Hertz is not the Eagles starting quarterback. But again, it's hard to predict the future, right? It's easier to chronicle it as than it is to predict it. I think we have one super chat here from DFC who says,

so now that the Eagles have the best quarterback from the 2023 preseason, do you start thinking about trading Jalen Hertz and McKee to reload the offense? DTR was very good. two summers ago. Oh, okay. He's talking about Derek. Oh, okay. Okay.

Okay. Did you like DTR when he was playing for Chip at UCLA? You know, I watched a good amount of him, actually. I actually didn't love him there, but I thought he exhibited like good moxie, good leadership ability. I mean, he was that year. They were able to win games that I thought that they probably weren't going to going to win if not for a veteran college quarterback. But I didn't love him coming out as,

or I wasn't as high on him coming out as you were, if I'm being honest. I wasn't that high on him. I just identified him as a possible day three sleeper. Yeah, that's what I mean. Yeah. Which, by the way, he's going in the year three in the NFL. So that's a good outcome for, he left it longer than Clayton Thorson did, right?

Clayton Thorson was a fifth round pick. Here's, I believe, aside from the McKee factor of this, probably the most important domino from this is, long time listeners will remember Michael Dunn says hello to Kenny Pickett. Michael Dunn is a free agent. Do you think that this makes it more or less likely that Michael Dunn rejoins the Cleveland Browns? Do you think he wants to be able to have this conversation with Kenny Pickett again? or do you think he's kind of embarrassed about the whole thing and kind of wants to avoid it? No, I think, look, if you're, I don't even want to say a reserve offensive lineman. If you're an offensive lineman, and especially one who's like an emergency center,

then having chemistry with the quarterback is awesome, right? And they've trained together at the test facility out in New Jersey. Yeah, I think this is a great connection for Michael Dunn. But I'm hoping Michael done starts somewhere, frankly, next year. The Eagles have a whole of red guard. Yeah, maybe in Cleveland. The Eagles now, after this pick, Zach, have four picks in the fifth round of the draft within eight picks of each other. How many turkeys on them making all four of those picks?

How many turkeys on them making all four of those picks? Zero. Yes. Zero. The question is, like, how many, if they turn these into 26 picks or if they use them to trade? up because if you remember the interesting thing is that the pick that they got in the picket deal okay so they got a fourth rounder back they actually turned that into a third rounder this year they turned that into the dolphins third rounder this year right uh so with four fifth round

round picks i'm wondering i'm sorry uh yeah fourth fifth round picks i'm wondering if those are packaged with a third round pick to move up or second round pick to move up or even a first round pick to move up or if these are the type of deals that they use to trade for 26 picks and just get more ammo next year. Because the Eagles like doing – the other thing they could do, by the way, is these could be player deals. We're talking about the comp pick formula. If you're talking about for looking for ways to address your team – or I'm sorry, to upgrade your team, you can certainly turn a fifth-round pick into a decent edge rusher or, you know, into a decent lineback or a decent corner or something like that. Yeah, that's fair. Roheet says,

Kenny started a game against the Cowboys and won a Super Bowl with the Eagles. Lived every Eagles fan's dream. You're right. Good point, Roheet. And he's actually the answer to a trivia question, which is who was the quarterback when the Eagles won the Super Bowl? And the answer was Kenny Pickett.

He took the knees at the end of the game. Maybe that's why Jalen wanted to be in the game so badly. Maybe Jalen wanted to have that ball. I actually wonder what Kenny Pickett did with that ball. Oh. Did he hold on to it? Did he flip it back to the ref? Like, what's the, I'm curious about that.

That's a good, that is a good follow story. Yeah. Like, like what happened through the Super Bowl winning ball? Because Janel did want to stay in that game, right? That's funny. I like that. I like that angle. I think the last thing here, what do I have here?

Oh, you know what? I don't know what it was. I do wonder, you know, there's the, the, change of mind for Miles Garrett. Maybe the Browns presented their plan for him, and that was part of not just the $40 million, but convincing him that they were heading in the right direction. What if they told him they were trading for the Eagles backup quarterback,

and he assumed it was Tanner McKee, and that's why he signed the deal, and now he's gobsmacked that it was actually Kenny Pickett. I actually don't have an answer, answer for that. I don't think that's the case. I'm sure. I don't know if he knows Tanner McKee, but he definitely knows Kenny Pickett. He played against Kenny Pickett. That's true. He was with the Steelers. So maybe that was one, you know, I saw actually Jerry Judy was on some interview today and they asked him what he would tell Andrew Barry and he said, go get me a

quarterback, right? And so I wonder if they said, we're getting your Kenny Pickett. But, hey, good for Kenny Pickett, man, right? Like I think Rohit put it well. He gets a Super Bowl ring. He plays for his hometown team. Now he gets a better chance to, he gets a chance to advance his career more. Okay. All right. I think that can wrap up our, our Kenny Pickett, Tanner McKee, Ascension, Emergency Pod, Zach, something tells me this might not be the last time we see each other tonight. Although you got your game. I know, 815, not 845, 815. And Emily's already, you got a stretch. Yeah, yeah, so we'll see. But I'm going to say hello to the wife and kids. and then the Emily and the kids, I should say, not the wife, Emily and the kids.

We all ball and chain. And then, uh, women. But I've not done any writing today. I have so much writing. I have so much writing I need to do. So, but yeah, everything is, uh, I, we probably will see each other. Now, by the way, where are you going to be doing that writing, Zach? This is the thing that I needed to do.

Oh, all p.g.O.I.com. We got special introductory rate right now. Limited time intro offer, $36. You can read right now, Bo Wolfe's Top 100 Eagles Free Agent, see who's still available. You can read my 25-step guy if I were Halle-Rosman. You can read my eight thoughts this morning. You can read the thoughts that I'll have tomorrow from today's activity. Of course, you can read Fran Duffey's draft guy.

You can read Charlie O'Connor's outstanding trade-downline coverage for the Flyers. Kyle and Derek are doing an awesome job with the Sixers, Jim Salisbury for the Phillies. there is nowhere else you're getting this type of comprehensive coverage on phoey sports so make sure you check that out on all p hly.com and we have a we have a great QR code on the screen that you can see nicely done now is the time $36 for the whole year what a deal that is what a deal that is now let me ask me if we do an emergency show tonight yes are you expecting it to be a player leaving or a player coming well there's probably, well, that's not true.

I was going to say there's probably only one other player who deserves an emergency pod for leaving, but I don't think that's true. I'm willing to do an emergency pod for Fred Johnson signing with someone. Our best numbers last year were Devonte Parker. Jenny Gainwell. Well, anybody coming, anyone coming is an emergency pod for sure. But yeah, I think it's still more likely that we'll do. We're probably going to do a Makai-Bectin pot tonight.

That's my guess. Okay. All right, great. Great. Well, I look forward to, unless it's between eight, well, I'll leave at eight and I'll probably be home around 930. So 8 and 930, I'll be hopefully winning a playoff game. If I'm not winning a playoff game, then I will be back here and ready to do an emergency show. Zach, I want you winning that game and I want you holding the ball at the end. I want you getting the Kenny Pickett for this game tonight. Okay. Actually, you know what? If we win the game, I probably am holding the ball at the end of the game. That is true. Love that. All right. Well, thank you to Julia and Chris for hanging around for this emergency pod. That'll do it for Zach. I'm Bo. We thank you for watching and listening. Stay tuned for more to come. Kenny Pickett. Thank you for your service. Tanner McKee. We are not worthy. That knows always we love you. You know,