Week 6 Injuries Expose the Brutal Truth About NFL Quarterback Depth: Tyler Huntley and Tanner McKee Aren't Starting Because They're Good

Let me be very clear about something. When you see Tyler Huntley and Tanner McKee lined up as starting quarterbacks in Week 6, this is not some clever roster management decision by intelligent front offices. This is a sign of desperation. This is what happens when your franchise quarterback goes down and you discover you have absolutely nothing in reserve. The Baltimore Ravens and Philadelphia Eagles are not excited about their backup situation. They are terrified of it. And that fear is completely justified.

The Ravens lose Lamar Jackson, and suddenly Tyler Huntley gets to play meaningful football in 2024. Let me remind you what that means. Huntley is a career backup who has started exactly four games in the NFL, and he was genuinely bad in those games. His completion percentage hovered around 58 percent. His decision making was suspect. He threw the ball to the wrong team multiple times. He is not a solution. He is a placeholder. And the Ravens organization knows this because they drafted a quarterback named Lamar Jackson in the first round back in 2018, not because they thought Huntley was going to be a useful member of their organization. Huntley's job was to be a professional practice squad player who could take some snaps in training camp. Instead, he is now being asked to win football games against NFL defenses.

The bigger picture here is that the Ravens made a catastrophic mistake in their quarterback planning. They have invested heavily in Lamar Jackson, which is fine. The problem is they invested so heavily in Jackson that they did not properly stock their backup position with competent talent. When you have a franchise quarterback who plays a physical style and takes hits like Lamar Jackson does, you need a backup who can keep your offense functional for at least a few weeks. The Ravens do not have that. They have Tyler Huntley. This is malpractice.

Over in Philadelphia, the situation is somehow even more broken. Jalen Hurts goes down, and Tanner McKee gets his opportunity. McKee was a third-round pick in 2023. He threw 24 interceptions in his final season at Purdue. His arm talent is okay at best. His processing speed is slow. His ability to go through progressions is behind where it needs to be at the professional level. The Eagles watched McKee struggle in practice throughout the entire 2024 preseason, and they watched him throw multiple interceptions in preseason games against second and third string defenses. Then they said, "Yeah, this is our backup plan if Jalen Hurts gets injured." That is a vote of no confidence in your backup situation. That is an organization that knows it is in trouble.

The Eagles had a chance to address this problem in free agency. They could have signed a veteran backup quarterback who actually knows how to run an NFL offense. Instead, they carried McKee as their primary backup and hoped Jackson would never get injured. Well, he did get injured. Now McKee gets to go into Chicago and play against a Bears defense that is actually decent. The Eagles are about to learn exactly how unprepared they are for a world without Jalen Hurts under center.

This is where I need to talk about the macro problem in the NFL. Too many teams operate like injuries are impossible. They build their rosters assuming their starting quarterback will never miss a game. Then when that starting quarterback inevitably gets hurt, they panic. They turn to career backups who have never proven they can compete at the professional level. The league sees this happen year after year after year, and nobody learns the lesson. It is stunning incompetence masquerading as roster construction.

The teams that win Super Bowls understand this problem. They understand that having a functional backup quarterback is not a luxury item. It is a necessity. When the Kansas City Chiefs had Patrick Mahomes, they understood they needed a backup who could at least keep the offense moving if Mahomes went down for a few weeks. When the Tampa Bay Buccaneers had Tom Brady, they understood the same thing. These teams got it right. The Ravens and Eagles do not. The Ravens and Eagles are about to pay the price for not taking their backup situation seriously.

Now let's talk about what this means for Week 6 specifically. The Ravens are hosting a team they should beat even with Tyler Huntley at quarterback. The competition level matters. Huntley is bad, but the Ravens defense is good, and the Ravens running game is strong enough to cover for a mediocre quarterback performance. They might win this game despite Huntley's presence on the field. That does not make Huntley a viable starting quarterback. It just means the Ravens have other strengths that can compensate for their weakness at the position.

The Eagles situation is more problematic. Tanner McKee is going into Chicago against a defense that has some legitimate pass rushing talent. The Bears will attack McKee from every angle. They will disguise their coverage. They will create situations that force McKee to process information quickly and make accurate decisions on the fly. McKee has shown in practice and in preseason that he struggles with those exact demands. This is a recipe for a disaster. The Eagles are going to get exposed here, and it is going to be ugly.

Meanwhile, in Atlanta, Michael Penix Jr. gets cleared to face the Chicago Bears. This is the most interesting storyline of the week because Penix actually changes the conversation. Unlike Huntley and McKee, Penix is a recent first-round draft pick who has legitimate starting potential. He is a quarterback the Falcons invested significant capital in acquiring. He is supposed to be part of the future. His clearance to play against Chicago is meaningful because it suggests Kirk Cousins' situation in Atlanta is genuinely serious. If Cousins cannot go, the Falcons have to trust their process and give Penix meaningful snaps.

The Falcons made the controversial decision to trade for Penix while still having Cousins under contract. That decision looked bad at the time. It still looks questionable right now. But if Cousins is unavailable for an extended period, Penix's presence becomes valuable. The Falcons get to evaluate whether their first-round pick can actually play professional football. They get real game action instead of just training camp and preseason evaluations. In a weird way, the injuries to other quarterbacks around the league might actually help Atlanta clarify what it has in Penix.

The bottom line is this: Week 6 is exposing a fundamental weakness across multiple NFL organizations. The Ravens have Huntley because they did not plan ahead. The Eagles have McKee because they did not address the backup position aggressively in free agency. The Falcons have Penix as an interesting wildcard because they made a bold draft decision that looks smarter if Cousins is out. These three situations will tell us a lot about organizational competence and quarterback evaluation.

Grade these organizations on their backup planning. The Ravens get a D. The Eagles get a D plus. The Falcons get a B minus for at least having a first-round pick in the wings who has some starting potential. None of these teams are properly positioned to handle extended quarterback absences, but at least Atlanta has Penix as a legitimate hope factor.

VERDICT: The NFL's backup quarterback crisis is real, and Week 6 is going to demonstrate exactly why so many teams are completely unprepared for it. Tyler Huntley starting is not a success story. It is a failure of organizational planning.