5 Eagles Most Likely to Be Inactive Against Patriots on Sunday

The Eagles have set their 53-man roster, but that doesn’t mean we know who’s going to suit up on Sunday. Only 48 players suit up for any given game, meaning there are five players on the active roster who don’t end up dressing on Sunday.

It’s not always easy to choose five guys to be inactive on gameday. Sometimes it’s more about depth at a given position than the overall quality of a player. And sometimes it’s the opposite – when a young player just isn’t ready to see the field on Sundays yet.

Here’s an early prediction for the Eagles’ five inactives for our season-opener agains the New England Patriots

Projecting Eagles Week 1 Inactives vs. Patriots

Tanner McKee

Tanner McKee is a bit of a low-hanging fruit here, but he’s essentially a lock to be inactive.

With the new emergency third quarterback rule, McKee doesn’t need to be active to have a chance to play. Because he and Marcus Mariota are both on the 53-man roster, McKee will be allowed to play should Jalen Hurts and Mariota both get hurt or ejected, even if McKee isn’t on the 48-man active roster.

So basically, unless the Eagles envision a scenario where Hurts and/or Mariota are still available but they want McKee on the field anyway, there is zero incentive to make him active. We could see a situation like that later in the season when maybe they’d get McKee reps in a meaningless game, but it certainly won’t happen early in the year.

McKee had a terrific preseason and more than earned this job over Ian Book, but he’s a long way from overtaking Mariota on the gameday roster.

McKee’s the easiest pick on the 53-man roster to be inactive on Sunday.