For two years, the Eagles have watched Tanner McKee in practice.

They knew how good he was.

So they were pretty excited for the rest of the world to find out on Sunday in the Eagles’ 41-7 win over the Dallas Cowboys.

“How about the Mormon Missile?” left tackle Jordan Mailata said. “The secret’s out.”

Coming into Sunday, the Eagles were already without starting quarterback Jalen Hurts, who missed the game with a concussion. And backup Kenny Pickett entered the day with a significant ribs injury that was aggravated in the third quarter when he took a couple of big hits.

That’s when McKee — a second-year, sixth-round pick — entered the game and helped seal the division-clinching win in his first-ever regular season NFL action.

“It’s surreal,” McKee said. “You grow up dreaming of playing college football and then someday in the NFL. So to actually play in the NFL, play with these guys, throw a touchdown pass, win a game, it is surreal. It’s really awesome.”

The Eagles drafted McKee in the sixth-round out of Stanford last year and he has been their third-string quarterback for each of the last two seasons. McKee began the season as a star in São Paulo because during college he served a mission trip in Brazil as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saints and can speak Portuguese.

But for most of the season, McKee had been an afterthought. In fact, Sunday was the first time McKee had been active in his career and he made the most of his first NFL game action.

McKee completed 3 of his 4 passing attempts for 54 yards and 2 touchdowns. He became the first player in NFL history to throw for multiple TDs with fewer than 5 attempts in their first career game.

And McKee even left the Linc with a souvenir from his first touchdown pass — a souvenir that comes with a great story. After McKee hit A.J. Brown on a 20-yard touchdown pass in the third quarter, Brown launched the football about 40 rows into the stands in celebration.

He didn’t realize it was McKee’s first touchdown pass and that the young QB would obviously want that ball. He didn’t realize what he had done until he got to the sideline and head coach Nick Sirianni told him.

“I felt so bad because I threw it so far,” Brown said. “I’m glad we got it back for him.”

It took a team effort to get the ball back too. 

Chief security officer Dom DiSandro and VP of equipment operations Greg Delimitros went toward the stands and secured the football from Eagles fan Patrick Driscoll, who accepted a trade offer from Brown. After the game, Brown took off his game-worn kelly green jersey, signed it and gave it to Driscoll.