PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - Eagles trade for WR Dontayvion Wicks, pave way for A.J. Brown trade?

Episode Date: April 11, 2026

Howie Roseman shocks us again with a trade for ex-Packers WR Dontayvion Wicks, sending two picks and signing him to a one-year extension, perhaps paving the way for A.J. Brown to eventually be traded. Is this a Sean Mannion-weighted move? We break down all the ramifications. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello, everybody, and welcome to an emergency podcast on a Friday afternoon, a Friday news dump at 6 p.m. live from the Xfinity Mobile Studio and presented by Xfinity. This is the P.H.O.Y. Eagles show, Bo Wolf, E.J. Smith, Rand Duffy, we got the gang together because this is a big one. E.J., I'm going to let you start. The Eagles have sent the Green Bay Packers, a 2025, fifth round pick, a 2020, six-sixth round pick. Do I have that reversed? 2026 fifth round pick and a 2007-six round-old. It's 2026. It's not 2025. That's what I have flipped.

It's all good. Anyway, they've sent two picks to the Packers. You do it. You've got the news. The newsman, the stone-cold newsman. So they send those two picks, 26-5th, 20276 round pick in exchange for wide receiver, Don Tavian Wicks. And they're signing Don Tavian Wicks to a one-year contract extension that'll put him under contract through the 2027 season,

two-year deal now, and the deal is worth up to, up to $12.5 million. Okay. So I'm going to get to you, Fran, in a minute, to break down what Don Tavinewix is as a player. But EJ, the Eagles making this move two weeks before the draft. What do you think it means? I mean, we're not talking in absolutes here, but we are getting closer to talking in absolutes, is what I would say here.

The path for AJ Brown out of Philadelphia is becoming more and more solidified and paved here. This is a trade that you can make this type of trade and keep AJ Brown on the roster. You don't have to keep AJ Brown on the roster as much because of these types of moves. And now listen, Dante V and Wicks isn't going to be like a number one type of receiver as frame will break down. But it does feel like they are laying the groundwork to life after AJ Brown with this type of move. So especially when you consider how expensive their wide receiver room already was. And again, maybe that 12.5 is doing up to is doing a lot of work there. But it's still a significant addition to a receiver room that they've already been addressing.

I think that this does signal that they are making plans for life after AJ Brown. This is the kind of Sean Manning connection that we were kind of expecting them to make at some point this off season. There's an obvious overlap here. So Sean Mayn, you can speak to Danteabian Wix, but I agree with you. E.J., it is very hard to believe that this is not the precursor to an A.J. Brown trade. Because this is not the case of, hey, this is great value. We couldn't pass it up. You know, Hollywood Brown on the market, you know, they're going out and seeking a top three caliber player at the wide receiver position. They're sending picks. They're signing him to an extension. Now, you could say that this is a, this is cover for what if we

trade AJ Brown next year because you have your, you're keeping somebody else on the roster. But Fran, I'm going to let you talk. I mean, it is, it's really hard to think that that is, this is not setting up for that. Yeah, you could make the argument either way to me. And I think the organization would make the argument either way, right? So I think when you look at Don Tavian, Wicks, the player, there are some things I really like, you know, just kind of buzzing through his film and and just having watched the Packers over the last few years. He was a fifth round pick back in 2023. So we've got a little bit of a runway here.

Pure possession receiver, a good route runner. He's got some savvy to him. I think he works blind spots well in the intermediate area and down the field. He is not a deep threat, right? So this is not, he ran 4, 5, 7 at the Combine. It's funny because when he was a UVA, he was like, outside the numbers vertical weapon. That's kind of how he was used in that offense.

But he is not a deep threat. And so what you're really looking at here, is a guy that's going to win at the intermediate area. He's going to win in the quick game, quick slants, hitches. Like that's kind of his bag. So I think when you're looking at his ability to win through contact, that's something I always place a lot of value on. The route running, I think, is good by NFL standard.

So there's a lot to like the volatility with him. I talked about the lack of speed. He's not a yards after catch guy. Like he's not going to be like, you know, game breaker that way. The issue has been, if you're going to be a possession receiver, possession is a big part of that. And he's had issues with drops. He had nine drops in 2024.

This is an issue that has gone back to college with him. It was one of the reasons why I was a little bit down on him compared to consensus coming out of college. But he has been able to kind of fight through that. He only had three drops last year. So I think when you're looking at Wix, it is a quick game, intermediate game. It's third and five. Hey, he's a guy that can get you five. He can get you seven.

He's that type of player to kind of move the sticks, keep things rolling. Nice blocker can line up inside and outside. They put him in motion a decent amount and try and get it. him space that way to work, but just not a game breaker as a receiver. This is a fun bet to make on a player. He's still very young. He has not yet turned 25, despite three years of playing. As you said, Fran, YAC is not his thing. 91st out of 109 wide receivers in YAC over the past two seasons. But he does some things well. 62nd out of 109 receivers in Yards Perrette run, which is a little bit behind Marquise Brown,

but it's way ahead of, you know, Jahan Dotson. And so the Eagles now have with AJ Brown here for capable wide receivers on the roster. It might be three and it might be, we'll see what happens in the draft. You know who he kind of reminds me of as a rut runner, this is going to be, this is very silly. He reminds me of Josh Ushay

because he has a very unique style that is kind of different than most wide receivers. Like Ushay has this weird kind of hesitating style that's different than most edge rushers. Yeah. And it kind of explains to some degree why Wix's production has dropped, each of the three seasons. It's, it's as if a little bit the book has gotten out on him,

whereas he was more unique right away. I think that's fair. And it's funny because, you know, watching him, one of the best routes that I think he runs, he runs a nice comeback route. And it's, honestly, that's a credit to him because it is hard to be a good comeback route runner if you are not a deep threat. We covered that actually with Marquis Brown on the, in the film session on Wednesday night was like, oh, like, you see him here, you know, kind of like push vertical and sell vertical, but he can throttle down and work back towards the line of scrimmage. If you're a DB and you're not worried about getting deep or getting beat deep by Donavian Wix, like it's a lot of work for Wix to sell that, sell vertical and then work back

and still create that separation. He actually caught one on Quinyan in the game this past fall on a route just like that. But his ability to fight through contact has always been admirable. He's a bigger kid. I like the skill set, but he's definitely, in my opinion, you know, he's a complimentary piece offensively. I don't know, man. It's interesting. Let me tell you just a break because we're brought to you by Xfinity. Our friends at Xfinity got that five-year price guarantee. A lot can change in five years.

You're probably going to go through a lot of wide receivers over that time. But the price of your internet is not going to change. That's thanks to our friends at Xfinity. Thank you for bringing us this emergency podcast. Jay, how much do you think the Sean Mannion of it all played a factor here? I'm sure it certainly helps. You know, the Eagles have talked about having translators in the room. at the different positions, guys who kind of are familiar with not only the concepts, but maybe even some of the terminology that Sean Mannion will bring with him. So, yeah, I think that it certainly is, it's very eaglesy to add a player that's familiar

with a new coach and a new coaching staff and a new system that they'll be implementing. And yeah, there's like proof of concept. I'm curious because Dantavia and Wix is such a departure from the two guys they signed in free agency in terms of like stylistic fit in the scheme, you know? And I understand, like, again, I probably put it at like a 10%, 5% chance that him and AJ Brown are in the same receiver room by the time we get to training camp at this point. But how those two might look on the field together is interesting because of the fact that I have, they have talked about that verticality and, you know, that, you know, dynamic,

having those like, you know, guys with real speed and being able to threaten vertically, you know, trying to get those guys for that third receiver spot. So he is definitely not really a fit in that mold. But again, I think that there is proof of concept with him in these systems. Here is the case that I would make if you're trying to pretend that this does not presage a.J. Brown trade. Howard Roseman told us at the owners meetings that they felt like they identified that they have not done a good enough job with wide receiver depth over the past couple of years. He was talking about that in the Elijah Moore signing. So with Elijah Moore and Hollywood Brown and Don Tavian Wix, you now have three capable receivers.

Hopefully, Darius Cooper makes a leap. And what I would think is this is their signal that they don't quite like this wide receiver draft class. I don't expect to draft a wide receiver. You know, you're trading a fifth round pick this year, a six round next year for a guy who you think is definitely better than anybody you could draft with a fifth round pick this year. It's just it's crowded. The resource allocation of it. it's hard to really buy. But maybe it is also, we need to be prepared for the possibility that somebody blows us away for AJ Brown. We don't necessarily have something done yet,

but we don't feel like we can properly protect ourselves for that possibility in the draft this year. This does that. Yeah, I definitely think this could just be like raising the floor on what it looks like post-A.J. I want to push back a little bit. I think I like this trade the most. if in a couple weeks time, we are talking about the Eagles adding a receiver early in the draft. I kind of like, you know, rebuilding the room in a post-AJ world with a rookie with real upside, and you pair him with somebody like Dante V and Wixen, obviously, Devante Smith is your number one. So I agree that it's probably an admission, like you're not expecting to get a player of his caliber in the later rounds, but I don't think that this precludes them from targeting wide receiver early in the draft.

Well, it's, a friend, this is interesting because if we fast forward, to pretend that AJ is gone. And you've got, let's say they do, let's say they had a third round wide receiver. So you've got Devante Smith and a young wide receiver, Hollywood Brown, Don Tavian Wicks, maybe somebody else gets involved. And you think about how the Packers wide receiver room

for the past few years has been, has been a spread of targets, all guys who have different roles, that sort of basketball in the field thing. Everybody has a different thing. And Jordan loves spreads up all around. It is obviously very different from the way that the Eagles offense has operated.

which has had the most narrow target share in the league, AJ and Devante and Dallas Goddard and everybody else, you might get a target once a game. That's it. It will be a very interesting test, if that is the case, of Jalen Hertz, because the question has been, has that been him sort of trusting the talent, or is that the way that he wants to play?

If we get there, it's going to be really fascinating to follow. Yeah, and I think that, look, this passing game is going to be one of the, I don't know, like five, ten most interesting subplots in the entire NFL this year. Like, and honestly, it's probably closer than in the top five. I think when you're looking at Jalen Hertz fitting in this system, it's going to be a huge topic of conversation. We talk about the under center and the whole, everything about this. I think the big thing that is interesting is, and it's one of the reasons we talked about the volatility of the past game a year ago and really over the last few years with Jalen is like

the amount of times that every dropback turns into a scramble, right? and just the volume of pure scramble and how that can create volatility because it's a there's a lot of randomness that becomes involved in it. And typically in scramble situations, if you're a quarterback, you're looking for your guys. Like you're looking, you're looking for, you know, if you're Jalen, it's, it's AJ and Devante. And one note, it was funny just kind of going through and watching all of Wicks targets from the past two seasons. Jordan Love kind of has an element to that too where he's going to extend and he's going to

scramble and he's not doing it to run. He's doing it to throw. And he never looked Wicks way. in the scraple drill situations. Like very rarely did I see a target that was like outside of structure for Dantavian Wick. So I did think that that was interesting as well. For the truly sick among you, let me tell you how the, what picks the Eagles are sending to the Green Bay Packers. This year's fifth round pick is the pick that they acquired for moving down five spots in the third round when the Falcons traded up to draft Xavier Watts last year.

So that's the first pick. And then I believe it is the second. of two sixth round picks next year. They have two. They have their own. And then they have the sixth round pick they acquired from the Green Bay Packers in exchange for Darien Kinnard. So it could be the Packers just getting that same pick back for Big Nard. Big Nard.

They still have a decent draft capital, we should say, on day three of the draft. They've got two fourths, a fifth rounder and a six-rounder. And that's mostly, I mean, half of those picks, two of the four picks are from compics. And this is kind of an important thing to note is that the Eagles have the luxury of using these types of picks because they've lost so many players in free agency. So, yeah, still pretty well situated on day three of the draft. No seventh round pick, which is a big win for the beat reporters. You don't have to wait all day, waiting for them to make that last pick.

You have now, crime you're right. I mean, first of all, they're definitely going to trade down now and get it pick up a couple sevens. That's fine. I don't know what you're doing. I said, I got for good to get into Jordan Milata so we don't have to sit around for two hours. Yeah, get out of here. I wasn't saying

As if you're not going to be live on the show anyway. It doesn't matter for me. I said the B reporters. You know, I got people in my life who would benefit from. They're not going to go any earlier. They still got to wait around because they got to do the undrafted guys and they got to wait for the end of the draft.

If they don't have a seventh round period. No, they never do that. No, they won't because they have to wait for the end of the draft to see how undrafted free agency plays out. Sometimes they get a jump on that. And, you know, they don't have that. You're kidding yourself. That's the worst. That's the worst take of the week.

That's your worst take. Give me all the peanut butter and jelly burgers. All the all the chocolate cake with yellow with the yellow filling. You guys caught me at Friday evening. You got me a little, little loose. All right. Let's wrap this bad boy up. Give you 15 minutes. We will have more on this as the situation develops next week as we also continue our draft prep. But the Eagles trading two picks to the Green Bay Packers for Dantavian Wicks, the wide receiver. Hard to believe that this is not the pre-convents. cursor to an AJ Brown trade. But if not, the Eagles wide receiver room all of a sudden, very stacked,

probably as deep as any in the NFL. We'll see what happens as the weekend goes on for E.J. Smith, for Fran Duffy, for superstar producer, Lindsay for making it all happen. We thank you for watching. We would touch later. Oh, wait, we have a super chat. Ross and found. If AJ is forcing his way out, trade him to the dolphins. I have his list. We can't get equal value in a trade. Have him do sit-ups like I don't think AJ would do the setups thing for the record. I don't think so either. Also, a comment that says Packers fans called him drop tavian. So that goes to Fran's point about that bad habit of drops.

But at least at least that means he's getting open. All right. For all of us here at P.H.O. I would thank you for watching and listening. Comment below. Let us know what you think about the trade for Don Tavian Wix. We will talk to you on Monday, hopefully. And as always, we love you.

Thank you.