The much-speculated move involving MIami Dolphins edge defender Jaelan Phillips has come to fruition.
The Dolphins are sending Phillips to the Philadelphia Eagles in exchange for a third-round pick in the 2026 NFL draft. The pick will be the Eagles’ own and not the one — which figures to be much higher — they got from the New York Jets in a 2024 trade involving pass rusher Haason Reddick.
Phillips is making $13.3 million on his fifth-year option, meaning he’s got $6.3 million left for the rest of the season, and NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport indicated the Dolphins picked up a portion of the remaining tab to facilitate the trade.
Phillips is scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent in the offseason. so technically there’s nothing preventing the Dolphins from re-signing him in March if they choose to give him a long-term contract.
All along, Phillips looked like the most logical Dolphins trade candidate because of the combination of his skills and his contract, which requires only a minimum commitment and can be extended if the Eagles choose to go that route.
The connection between Phillips and the Eagles, who are looking for pass-rushing help, is pretty clear with Vic Fangio having served as the Dolphins’ defensive coordinator in 2023 before leaving to take the same job with Philadelphia.
The Dolphins were willing to move Phillips for obvious reasons, namely that he’s scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent next offseason and the organization probably isn’t eager to give him a long-term contract in light of the current state of affairs in Miami, not to mention his lengthy injury history.
Phillips has had an interesting season in his return from his torn ACL, on the one hand providing pretty consistent pressure on the quarterback but on the other too often failing to bring down the quarterback — the two glaring examples being the late play against Justin Herbert and the Los Angeles Chargers and the near-sack of Lamar Jackson that turned into a long gain on the final play of the first quarter against the Baltimore Ravens on Thursday night.
It was Phillips’ injury history that likely made the Dolphins decide to have him play on his fifth-year option in 2025, and the team looking at a likely rebuild in light of this disaster of a season has made Phillips a trade candidate, if not a trade certainly — whether it goes to the Philadelphia Eagles, San Francisco 49ers, Detroit Lions or any other team.
Getting a third-round pick for Phillips was nice work by the Dolphins, and we strongly recommended in a piece Sunday making that deal if they could do it, even if it did require paying part of Phillips’ remaining salary.
The Dolphins clearly aren’t going anywhere in 2025 and the time has come — or pretty much has come — to turn their attention to the rebuilding job that awaits and start identifying the players who need to be around next year and moving forward.
Phillips started each of the first nine games for the Dolphins this season and has 25 tackles and three sacks. His seven quarterback hits are tied for the team lead with fellow edge defender Bradley Chubb.
The trade was the first made by interim GM Champ Kelly, who took over personnel decisions after the team parted ways with Chris Grier on Friday morning.
It very well may not be the last, with fellow edge defenders Bradley Chubb and Matthew Judon, the next-two most likely Dolphins veterans on the move.
Had the Dolphins hung on to Phillips for the remainder of the season and then lost him in free agency, they could have been in line for a compensatory pick, but there were factors to consider.
The first is that the compensatory picks start in the third round, so the Dolphins wouldn’t do better than that trade return.
And that’s only if Phillips winds up being ranked among the top compensatory free agents based on the NFL’s complicated formula. But that formula starts with the highest annual average, and it’s fair to wonder exactly how much Phillips will get on the open market.
But here’s the most important point: Getting compensatory picks only applies to those teams that lose more compensatory free agents than they sign.
And it’s all about the total of free agents and not the value of the contracts because, for example, the Dolphins are not projected by OverTheCap.com to get any compensatory picks in 2026 because they signed four and lost four, and it doesn’t matter that Jevon Holland got by far the highest contract of the eight free agents involved.
So, the Dolphins would have first needed to have a net loss of free agents before the issue of how high a draft pick Phillips would have brought came into play.
With the trade, the Dolphins now don’t have to guess: They will get a third-round pick for Phillips and it will come a year later because 2026 free agent departures can produce compensatory picks in the 2027 draft.
All along, unless the Dolphins had Phillips clearly in their plans for 2026 and beyond, then moving him for a third-round pick was a no-brainer.
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