Howie Roseman fixes Eagles defense but not with Myles Garrett; Jayden Daniels misused by Dan Quinn

At the deadline eight years ago, Howie Roseman traded a mid-round pick to the Dolphins for a player with an injury history on a rookie deal — a running back, a position he’d failed to properly address in the offseason. That player, Jay Ajayi, helped the Eagles win their first Super Bowl.

On Monday, Roseman traded a mid-round pick to the Dolphins for a player with an injury history on a rookie deal — an edge rusher, a position he’d failed to properly address in the offseason. Don’t be surprised if that player, Jaelan Phillips, helps the Eagles win their third Super Bowl.

» READ MORE: 5 things to know about Jaelan Phillips

Roseman sent a fourth-rounder to South Beach for Ajayi. It took a third-rounder (the lesser of the Eagles’ two third-rounders in 2026) to deliver Phillips, the 18th overall pick in 2021. He collected 22 sacks in his first 42 games, including 6½ sacks in just eight games in 2023, when his coordinator was current Eagles coordinator Vic Fangio. Oblique, back, and Achilles injuries limited his availability in 2023, and four games into 2024, he tore his ACL. He is healthy this season and has three sacks in nine games for the listless, 2-7 Dolphins.

With the deadline looming Tuesday at 4 p.m., the arrival of Phillips, 26, likely will end the fantasy of the Eagles acquiring 29-year-old defensive lineman Myles Garrett. He was the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year in 2023 and the third-place finisher in 2024, and the Browns would have demanded a raft of current and future assets that no team with active Super Bowl aspirations could afford.

This was Roseman’s third trade in the eight days since the Eagles entered their bye week, and it further addresses expected defensive deficiencies in Roseman’s 2025 roster. He did not adequately replace Milton Williams and Josh Sweat, linemen who got big free-agent deals, or Brandon Graham, the legendary end who retired, nor did he adequately replace free-agent cornerbacks Darius Slay and Isaiah Rodgers.

When injury and inefficiency created a crisis on the thin, ineffective ranks of the line — the Eagles have 16 sacks, 24th in the NFL — Roseman coaxed Graham out of retirement two weeks ago. Now, he has added Phillips. Both will take snaps away from ineffective veteran Joshua Uche and second-year edge rusher Jaylx Hunt, who, through eight games, have one sack apiece.

Roseman on Wednesday also traded for Jets slot cornerback Michael Carter II, whose arrival could signal a move to the outside by Cooper DeJean, a second-year player who has mastered the slot. Among the 44 corners who’ve seen at least 400 snaps, DeJean is ranked No. 1 in both coverage and overall play by Pro Football Focus.

» READ MORE: What's next for the Eagles at the deadline?

The question about DeJean’s alignment might have been answered Saturday, when Roseman traded for veteran Ravens corner Jaire Alexander, who plays the outside.

But does Alexander play the outside better than Kelee Ringo, whom PFF ranks 64th among corners with at least 200 snaps? Does Alexander play the outside better than Adoreé Jackson, who ranks 92nd?

In 2023, Roseman drafted Ringo in the fourth round. On March 13, Roseman signed Jackson to a one-year, $2.5 million deal. That same day he signed Uche, who has one sack in eight games.

These were low-risk low-risk, low-return moves. They are moves that, in the last eight days, Roseman has tried to fix.

Dan Quinn oversaw the biggest collapse in Super Bowl history, when his Falcons blew a 28-3 lead to Tom Brady and the Patriots in Super Bowl LI.

Now, this.

Quinn left Washington’s franchise quarterback, Jayden Daniels, in the game Sunday night despite trailing the Seahawks by 31 midway through the fourth quarter with a win probability of about 0.1%, if you’re into that sort of thing. In other words, statistically speaking — and these days we’re always speaking statistically — there was no reason for Daniels to be in the game, especially since he’d missed the last two games with a hamstring injury.

Nobody told Quinn that.

Sure enough, Daniels dislocated his left (non-throwing) elbow when he was tackled while scrambling for what would have been a meaningless touchdown. He is almost assuredly done for the season.

He should have been done for the game long before. Like, after the Seahawks took a 38-7 lead late in the third quarter. There was no hope: Not once in the more than 18,000 games in NFL history has a team come back from 31 points down in the fourth quarter.

Quinn seemed stunned afterward. Asked why Daniels was still in the game, he replied with this gobbledygook:

“Obviously, like the hindsight, you don’t want to think that way, where an injury could take place.”

What?

A week before hosting the Eagles on Monday Night Football — an Eagles team that is 6-2 and coming off a bye — the Packers lost, 16-13, to the visiting Panthers. That was the good news.

They also lost linchpin tight end Tucker Kraft to a torn ACL. First-round rookie receiver Matthew Golden (shoulder), starting defensive lineman Colby Wooden (shoulder), and $77 million free-agent left guard Aaron Banks (stinger) also all left the game for good with injuries.

The Bears ripped the Bengals’ hearts out Sunday with a last-minute touchdown in a 47-42 win. It was the second straight week the defense collapsed late at home: The Jets won, 39-38, on a TD inside of two minutes. It’s the first time in 59 years that a team has lost consecutive games while scoring at least 38 points, and the Bengals offense has seen enough.

As he left the field, star receiver Ja’Marr Chase was overheard saying, “One [bleeping] stop.” Later, at his locker Chase declined to further criticize the defense.

Running back Chase Brown was less diplomatic:

“Just finish the [bleeping] game. Like, just end it. That’s what we need to do. Just end the [bleeping] game. Get us the ball back.”

The Bengals are 3-6, and they’ve been without franchise QB Joe Burrow since he was injured in Week 2, but Joe Flacco threw for a career-best 470 yards Sunday. The defense ranks last in overall average yardage, is last against the run, second-worst against the pass, and last in points allowed, recently falling behind the Cowboys in several of those categories.

Did the Colts just play a bad game, or did they regress to their moribund mean? Shane Steichen’s Coach of the Year candidacy, fueled by a 7-1 start, took a hit in Sunday’s 27-20 loss in Pittsburgh, where quarterback Daniel Jones’ Season of Resurrection took a turn for the worse with five turnovers. ... The latest evidence of the foolishness of the NFL’s new special-teams ball policy that allows teams several days to condition “K” balls: Jaguars kicker Cam Little on Sunday broke the NFL field-goal record by 2 yards with a 68-yard kick. Of course, the NFL is probably delighted to get Justin Tucker’s 66-yarder off the top of its list, considering Tucker is serving a 10-game suspension for violating the NFL personal conduct policy after an investigation into alleged sexual misconduct following accusations by 16 massage therapists.