Bengals defense shouldn't hit panic button (yet) after Tanner McKee torched them

Joe Burrow and the Cincinnati Bengals offense was as elite as advertised in Thursday's preseason opener against the Philadelphia Eagles. Unfortunately, Burrow and Co. were finished for the evening after two touchdown-scoring drives, ceding the stage for Eagles quarterback Tanner McKee to shine.

McKee is one of the best-kept secrets in the NFL, but real ball knowers understand that he's one of the premier backup QBs. Prior to Thursday's kickoff, yours truly thought Jake Browning might steal the show. Instead, it was all Tanner McKee.

Making this take of mine continue to age like fine wine, eh?

The cannon-armed 25-year-old put on a clinic against the Bengals' hapless defense, which didn't inspire confidence that it'd make any meaningful strides from last season's debacle. However, let me be the one to talk Bengals fans into still believing everything's going to be OK.

Tanner McKee's performance is a wake-up call for Bengals defense

New defensive coordinator Al Golden is a popular man in Cincinnati right now. Problem is, he won't be able to whip out his most exotic schemes until the regular season.

Any starting-caliber QB has the capacity to feast on a vanilla preseason defense on any given night. It just so happened that Tanner McKee exposed certain deficiencies and depth issues that threaten to beset the Bengals' quest to return to the playoffs for the first time in three years.

Not having Trey Hendrickson available continues to rear its ugly head for this Cincy d-line. Not only were they gashed in the run game, but the lack of meaningful pressure up front meant McKee could sit back and surgically pick apart the Bengals' shorthanded secondary, which was without starting cornerbacks Dax Hill and Cam Taylor-Britt among others.

All those qualifiers aside, surely Cincinnati fans wanted to see a better showing from a unit that was straight-up awful for most of the 2024 campaign. That didn't come to pass, in large part because McKee is a stone-cold baller. Just listen to what he had to say about his Madden rating if you don't believe me.

That's like Babe Ruth levels of calling your shot. He completed 20 of 25 passes for 252 yards and two TDs, even kicking in a Tush Push plunge for another score. Look at some of these freaking throws...

The type of praise McKee is drawing from reputable sources isn't the typical fare of a trendy backup. He has very real traits to be an NFL starter.

I told the Slack chat this tonight: I'm half-tempted to post a Norman Rockwell painting stand-up meme to fire off my blazing-hot take that the Eagles' passing attack would be superior with McKee under center over Jalen Hurts. I'm joking about that, of course. Hurts is a Super Bowl champ who's outdueled Patrick Mahomes twice on that grandest of stages.

Thanks to Hurts' steady improvement year-over-year, though, McKee will never get the chance to start in Philly, barring an unforeseen, Carson Wentz-esque regression from Hurts. Ain't gonna happen as far as I can tell.

We all know Eagles GM Howie Roseman loves to wheel and deal. He has to be smiling ear to ear after McKee's epic display. Any QB-needy team — paging the Indianapolis Colts — could easily justify trading a premium draft asset to acquire McKee's services.

If you think the McKee love is baseless, look no further than last preseason. JT O'Sullivan of The QB School breaks down how many big-boy anticipation throws McKee is capable of making. He showcased some of that on Thursday, and the Bengals had no answers for him.

In other words, the conclusion here is that Tanner McKee would make a lot of exhibition-schemed defenses look terrible. The Eagles also have such a deep roster that their backups are capable of operating at a higher level than those of most other teams.

Let's not get all doom and gloomy after one admittedly poor preseason effort from the defense, Bengals fans. Trey can still ink that extension, Shemar Stewart can work his way into the starting lineup, and the presence of Hill and CTB in the cornerback group should work wonders toward an improving trajectory going forward.

But hey, if the defense isn't up to snuff, we've still got Joe Burrow to win us plenty of shootouts. Give him one or two stops a game, and we're on our way to double-digit wins and a ticket to the playoff dance, where anything is possible!