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.
1. Jaelan Phillips, Edge, Miami Dolphins
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 tackles, 15 pressures, and two sacks so far in 2025.
Over his 54 games in Miami with 37 starts, Phillips has amassed an impressive 173 tackles, 96 pressures, and 25 sacks, and once looked like the most promising young edge in the game, at least until injuries started derailing his career, first under Fangio in 2023 and again in 2024, when he only played four games.
While injuries are certainly a concern for Phillips, and may impact the sort of long-term contract he could garner on the open market, he has a proven track record in Fangio's defense, is young, and can play all three defensive downs, which isn't always necessarily the case for a mid-season trade acquisition, even one who could cost a mid-round pick to acquire.
2. Will Dissly, Tight End, Los Angeles Chargers
For one reason or another, Roseman has seemingly spent the entirety of 2025 looking for a way to replace Dallas Goedert.
One of the true success stories of the Eagles' post-Super Bowl era, selected with Philadelphia's first selection in the 2018 NFL Draft, Goedert has become increasingly injury-prone over the last few seasons, which, when coupled with his desire to get another new, lucrative contract, could spell a conscious decoupling next spring, presumably just before Roseman selects his successor in Pittsburgh.
In order to fully move on from Goedert, however, the Eagles need to lock in at least a short-term replacement they can feel confident in, a tight end who can catch passes but also serve as a weapon in the running game, where the Eagles need position players to lock up defenders in the open field more than most.
Enter Will Dissly, who just so happens to be one of the best blocking tight ends in the game.
In 2024, Dissly was a certified weapon for the Jim Harbaugh-led Chargers, catching 50 of the 64 balls thrown his way for 481 yards and a touchdown while helping to lead the way for a quality rushing offense built around J.K. Dobbins and Gus Edwards.
Unfortunately for Dissly, after logging 57 percent of the Chargers' offensive snaps in 2024, he's down to just 34 percent in 2025, having only appeared in four games with one start following the emergence of 2025 fifth-round pick Oronde Gadsden II. Granted, Dissly has been nicked up with a knee injury so far this season, but in Week 8, he was a scratch in favor of Tyler Conklin and Tucker Fisk. If the Eagles want to add a moveable blocker who can catch, play in-line, and even kick back to fullback over Cameron Fatu following the loss of Ben VanSumeren over the summer, Dissly could be had on the cheap and has a reasonable cap hit in 2026 if Philadelphia wants to keep him.
3. Tariq Woolen
Did the Eagles just trade for a cornerback? Yes. Will Woolen demand a big contract the likes of which Philadelphia likely doesn't want to pay out next spring if he balls out? Yes. And will some other team(s) also call up Seattle Seahawks general manager John Schneider to see if they can pry away the former college wide receiver via trade? Yes, yes, and yes.
But frankly, does that really matter?
Roseman traded for a running back in Tank Bigsby when he already had the best one in football, and that paid major dividends in Week 8 against the New York Giants. He also landed a quality slot cornerback when he already has arguably the best interior option in the sport in Cooper DeJean, and did so by shipping away a wide receiver he acquired earlier in the summer, when he was already looking good at wide receiver.
Like Phillips, Woolen is going to be in demand next spring, with his next contract almost certainly garnering at least a fourth-round compensatory pick, if not a third, which is the grandest prize a team can garner from the formula. He's a natural outside cornerback, allowing DeJean to stay inside, and most importantly of all, he's a certified athletic freak, with A+ speed, good ball skills, and an ability to press at the line of scrimmage.
While Woolen isn't perfect – as if he was, the Seahawks would be playing him – he is the kind of player worth betting on, with Fangio being able to mix and match Carter II and the former UTSA Roadrunner as he sees fit, depending on the matchup.
Will it happen? Frankly, it's hard to say, but one way or another, it feels like some team will acquire Woolen and the price will be reasonable. Ever a deal hunter, Roseman would be wise to be the one on the opposite side of that transaction.
