Eagles land edge rusher Jaelan Phillips in trade with Dolphins: Source
Howie Roseman has made his big trade splash.
The Philadelphia Eagles on Monday morning acquired edge rusher Jaelan Phillips from the Miami Dolphins for a 2026 third-round pick, a league source confirmed to NBC Sports Philadelphia.
In the last week, the Eagles have been linked to several high-profile edge rushers, including Phillips, who played under Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio for one season in Miami.
In that one season under Fangio in 2023, Phillips had 6 1/2 sacks in 8 games before tearing his Achilles.
The Eagles had two third-round picks in the 2026 draft — theirs and one from the Jets. The pick going to the Dolphins in this trade is their own third-round pick, a source confirmed. That’s significant because it’s more likely to be at the end of the round. The Eagles now have five picks in the 2026 draft but are expected to get three more compensatory picks.
Phillips (6-5, 263) is in the fifth-year option season of his rookie contract, so he’s set to be a free agent in March. Of course, if things go well the rest of this season, the Eagles would have a head start to re-sign him. The Dolphins are paying a portion of Phillips’ remaining salary to get a better pick, NFL Network reported.
The Dolphins last week, after a 2-7 start, fired general manager Chris Grier so Roseman pulled off this trade with interim general manager Champ Kelly.
Phillips, 26, was a first-round pick out of the University of Miami in the 2021 draft and has showed a ton of promise in his young career but was limited in 2023 and 2024 with injuries. After playing in just four games in 2024 because of a knee injury, Phillips returned this season and has played and started in all nine of the Dolphins’ games. He has 3 sacks (all in the last 5 games) and 7 QB hits this season but leads the Dolphins with 29 pressures — 12 of those pressures are quick pressures (under 3 seconds), per NextGen Stats.
Jalyx Hunt leads the Eagles in pressures this season with 30 and no other player has more than 19. Eagles edge rushers this season have combined for 4 1/2 sacks but 1 1/2 of them belong to Za’Darius Smith, who retired last month.
This is the third trade Roseman has made in six days. Last week, he acquired cornerbacks Michael Carter II and Jaire Alexander to bolster the secondary. But it always felt like the big splash would come at edge rusher and it happened on Monday morning ahead of the trade deadline on Tuesday afternoon.
In his five NFL seasons, Phillips has played in 55 games with 38 starts and has 26 sacks, 61 QB hits and 28 tackles for loss.
The Eagles needed edge rusher help and that was even before Za’Darius Smith abruptly retired last month. And after the bye week, they will get Brandon Graham back from retirement and are expected to get Nolan Smith (triceps) back from Injured Reserve. So the Eagles’ edge rusher group for the second half of the season will include Hunt, Phillips, Smith, Graham, Josh Uche and Patrick Johnson, as well as Jihaad Campbell when he’s not at linebacker. Azeez Ojulari was placed on IR this weekend.
