ClutchPoints
On Wednesday afternoon, Howie Roseman did what he does best: trade some future capital for a win-now Philadelphia Eagles player.
With his cornerback depth looking suboptimal, especially as Darius Slay and Isaiah Rodgers both played fairly well for the Pittsburgh Steelers and Minnesota Vikings, Roseman called up the New York Jets and reunited slot cornerback Michael Carter II with the man who drafted him, Joe Douglas, flipped John Mitchie II, himself a trade acquisition earlier in the year, and a sixth for the Duke corner plus a future seventh.
Now, for the Eagles, this deal was a pretty easy one to execute, especially after Carter II waived his injury guarantee for next season, as Vic Fangio gets a new weapon who can contribute on the interior in his defensive backfield, and he can theoretically be released for a very small cap hit before next March. If the Eagles like Carter II, they can certainly rework his contract to better fit under the cap, and if not, well, Mitchie II did basically nothing all regular season long, so sending him packing only further opens the door for Darius Cooper, who just came off of IR.
Suddenly set with three professional cornerbacks ahead of the bye week, Roseman, Douglas, and company can now rest easy and enjoy the off weekend, right? Nope, as if there’s anything the Eagles’ Executive Vice President/General Manager likes to do, it’s make deals. With almost a week to go before the 2025 NFL trade deadline, the Eagles have a chance to further fortify their team heading into the playoffs.
After reuniting Douglas with Carter II in free agency, the Eagles could do the same with a certain edge rusher from the Miami Dolphins who played the 2023 season under Vic Fangio: Jaelan Phillips.
Yes, technically the Dolphins have a number of players who spent time under Fangio in 2023, including Bradley Chubb, who has an even longer resume with the former Broncos head coach from their time together in Denver, but the Pro Bowler is on a long-term contract that will be harder to move, and could theoretically impact the Eagles’ team-building plans into the future. Phillips, by contrast, is a former first-round pick out of Miami and UCLA who is currently playing on his fifth-year option. He has no more guaranteed money owed to him after the Super Bowl, and could theoretically land the Eagles a quality compensatory draft pick if he ends up leaving town in free agency for greener grass.
Fortunately, the 26-year-old is such a good player that, if he can live up to his ceiling, Roseman might just want to keep him around for a while as a long-term building block for the future.
Standing 6-foot-5, 263 pounds, Phillips is an absolute force of nature when he’s on the field, ranking seventh in the NFL in run stop win rate at 31%, a key requirement to play the position in Fangio’s defense, while amassing 21...
