PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - Emergency Pod: Eagles trade DT Thomas Booker for CB Jakorian Bennett

Episode Date: August 5, 2025

Surprise! The Eagles made a late-night trade, dealing from their impressive DT depth and sending away all-around good guy Thomas Booker IV to the Raiders for CB Jakorian Bennett, a fourth-round pick in 2022. 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, presented by our friends at Dudat Dental and True Mark Financial Credit Union, Bowulf, Fran Duffy, and a surprise Monday night, Fran. The Eagles swing a deal, trading away the great Thomas Booker, Super Bowl champion defensive tackle to the Las Vegas Raiders in exchange for cornerback, Jacori, and Bennett. And Fran, this to me, like, some people's like, oh, that's an interesting trade.

I feel like I could talk about this trade for five hours. This is fascinating to me. And it says some really interesting things about what the Eagles think about their roster. So we will go, we will not go five hours. We'll try to go about 10 minutes here. We'll go full. Let's start with Jacorian Bennett. I want to know what he is, who he is, the player.

We'll do a little eulogy for Thomas Booker. And then we'll get into why we think the Eagles made this deal. So let's start with Jacorian Bennett, a fourth round pick in 2020. I believe one pick ahead of Keelierringo in that draft. out of Maryland a little bit undersized, 5-10, very fast, and played a lot for the Raiders last season. What kind of player is Jacori and Bennett friend? Yeah, well, here's the thing. So I studied Bennett when he was at Maryland, went back through and just studied a bunch of clips before we jumped on here.

So everything's fresh in my mind. That's fantastic. Four-framed. Well, we just tried to turn this thing around. Luckily, I was already watching film, so it was an easy transition. But Jacori and Bennett, under 5-11, 100. 188 pounds at the combine back in 2023, right at 4-3 flat in Indianapolis, a 1, 4,5, 10-yard split, 133-inch broad jump, 40 and a half-inch vert tested out of this world.

Outstanding testing, even for a smaller corner. A lot of those numbers are really, really impressive. So now the rub there is that I didn't think he always played to that testing. He is very much a linear athlete. You noticed, both I did not mention any shuttle times there. I think that was purposeful from his side. I do think he's a little bit tight laterally, and I think that does show up on tape,

both in college and from the NFL. It's funny. As I was, now, obviously you mentioned he and Ringo were in the same draft class. So I did not make this comparison back then. But as I'm watching him tonight and going back through some of the Raider stuff, he's like a smaller Ringo.

It's a lot of the, it's a lot of the same issues, some of the same positives, but a lot of the same negatives from a ball awareness standpoint. You know, there's a lot of times where he's like hip to hip with a receiver on a vertical route and he's he's in position where he should be now trying to find the ball and he doesn't there are plays where he is top down where he's he can click and close on a football

on a throw in front of him and try and make a play on it and he just because we've all seen the plays with ring go ring go and bring that play on that football and he just goes for the pb u or he's maybe just a tick late to be able to do so and he doesn't make the play a lot of that with bennett now the thing with wringo is that he's you know as big as he is right he's got he's got he's got that size to be able to mitigate that uh bennett does not have that size as you mentioned so i think when you're looking at it to me uh this is a p carroll coming in he is not a p carroll corner uh this is the right body type standpoint uh so i just i don't think that the um i don't think that the skill set necessarily match the scheme there so you can look at it

that way it's all right well the eagles are getting somebody that the team was down on i will say that raider secondary no one had high hopes for that secondary going into this year no one had high up that was not one of the best secondaries in football last year. So you're getting somebody that one of the worst secondaries in football last year is willing to move on from. So there's a downside to that as well. I saw Dan Pizzuta from the FTN tweeting that Bennett actually had the eighth best adjusted yarns allowed per coverage snap last season. So there's some evidence that he's maybe better than that, although I think you're right. The signal here is a team that needs secondary help is willing to deal a guy in the secondary.

when you say that he is a linear athlete. So would you say that despite that size, he is an outside corner and probably not somebody who can play inside? Yeah, he's been mostly an outside corner over the course of his career, both in Maryland and with the Raiders. You know, at that size, he would say, oh, maybe he's more of an inside guy, but he has been primarily an outside corner.

They played a lot of man coverage last year, Patrick Graham with the Raiders. There was a lot of him on an island on the outside. And so, yeah, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not anticipating that that's going to be his role here in Philly. The other issue as well, and this was an issue that I had that I got hung up on, honestly, because I graded him as a developmental backup. He was my 29th corner back in 2023.

And a lot of those issues stemmed from issues tackling in space and making plays downhill in that way. So I had issues, like even concerns special teams wise, like because people thought, oh, yeah, he's fast. He can run down on kickoffs. Well, you got to be able to make the tackle as well. And that's something that Bennett has struggled with. both in college and in the NFL. And so I do think at the end of the day,

you're probably talking like fourth, fifth corner. He's played plenty on the outside, and he's been a match-up guy. So I do think that there's talent there, but I do think the expectations should probably be tempered, certainly. Well, and we should also, you know, this is not a, this is not a Tegowan trade, right, where you're taking the guy on spec.

He played 450 snaps last year. The Eagles have tape on him. They, you know, they have opinion on him based on that. Now, we don't know yet whether Vic Fangio has an opinion, whether he will tell us that this is just a guy how he wanted and he brought him to the room or if he will have actually invited Vic in to watch this guy or not. But it is very interesting. And I think this is probably an indication that the Eagles would like to add somebody to the mix

with Kili Ringo and Adori Jackson on the outside. We'll get to that in a second. Let's take a minute here on Thomas Booker just to bid farewell to a real one. Thomas Booker, who should be noted? the most outspoken member of the Eagles locker room in the election. So, you know, maybe this was a deal that was made when the Eagles went to the White House. But Thomas Booker, we have talked about him this summer. He is too good for where he is on the roster, essentially.

Like, where he is is the fifth defensive tackle, and he's cleaning up against, you know, the backup guards on this Eagles team. But to, well, you know, I want to get to what it made because to me this is, this is, this a Gabe Hall trade, basically, from a defensive tackle standpoint. But let's just say, let's give Thomas Booker his flowers a valued and I think a memorable member of the Super Bowl champion team. Yeah, I believe spoke with reporters today. This is a guy that's always been great with media, but I think on the film was the backup nose tackle last year.

Pleasure to talk to. Oh, absolutely. But a backup nose tackle last year, but can play up and down the line of scrimmage. You know, you can line up as a three technique. you can line up as a four-eye technique. So a guy with versatility, you can hold up against the run. He's got some quickness to get after the quarterback. But as you mentioned, just stuck in a log jam here in Philadelphia,

just because of the talent that they've got up front. And then you had some young guys pushing them. So the Eagles are hoping to try and get some value. And you try and find somebody here in Jacorian Bennett that can push the back end of the quarterback room and maybe give you some help on special teams, ideally. Right. This is this is not a my trash for your trash trade, essentially. You know, this is not what the Eagles thought the Ryan Bates for Eli Harold trade was,

where we're just getting some depth at a position that we need. Thomas Booker is a real NFL player. He will be on that roster. And I think the Eagles feel comfortable trading him because Jalen Carter is going to play 80% of the snaps. You've got Jordan Davis and Morrow Ojamo as your next two guys. And Ty Robinson is going to make this team and he looks pretty good. And Gabe Hall, who you noticed right away this summer friend, has taken that leap and kind of along the same development that Thomas Booker was.

You know, Thomas Booker was on the practice squad for a year, took the offseason of development, showed up last summer and impressed Gabe Hall one year prior than Booker in his second year in the NFL has looked really good this summer. Yeah, you're talking about, you know, a player in Gabe Hall who was undrafted last year out of Baylor, the athleticism, the initial quickness, the length all stood out as a young player last year as a rookie in his first camp. This year, I think that he has shown a little bit more consistency with how he has shown up. his hands look a lot faster. So I'm excited to see what he looks like in preseason in games. I mean, he's, you got to feel good about his chances to make this 53 now. I think Thomas Booker was one of the people kind of in his way. He's a lot.

I think that I would think that he's a lock at this point. Okay. Let's get to what this tells us about the roster. And we'll start with the super chat from Alex White. Who wants to ask Zach a question? Unfortunately, Zach is not with us. He says, Love U ZB. Turkey's on who starts at cornerback.

And he wants to know of Zach. We'll still be covering the Eagles. We'll let Zach address that himself at a later date. How many turkeys would you put on Jacorian Bennett starting opposite Quinion Mitchell on the outside in Nickel? Like opening day? Maybe who gets the most snaps over the course of the season? I don't think it would happen unless it was by injury. I don't think that this is a player that is here to compete.

I mean, he's going to be here to compete, but I don't think that he's a realistic competitor for a starting job early in the season. I just think that even though that he has played significant snaps with the Raiders, I just I don't think that he's that tier of player. Like I said, he's a smaller Ringo. I think you'd rather have Ringo, right? Just because of the length and his familiarity with the scheme. So, you know, that that would surprise me. He's built like Adore. So maybe he's a he's like a younger adore. And it could be that maybe this is, you know, because it's not, well, that's the thing is that Vic Fangio just literally said today that the competition between Ringo and and Adori Jackson was very close.

So I was going to say maybe this signal... Maybe it didn't mean in a good way. Yeah, right. So maybe it signals that, you know, Vic, you know, wasn't the hugest fan of Adora if you listened to him last week, but he said that it was close today. So, yeah, that will be interesting. I just, I think this is more a depth piece for the secondary

than a guy that's going to compete for significant snaps. Well, it's interesting because they don't have a clear second starter. I feel like they have, they have, like, depth guys. you know what like mac mac williams is going to make this team you know there's been some gas for eli ricks over the past couple of days i'm not exactly buying that necessarily so maybe this is this is an eli ricks replacement but i don't know that you i don't know that you trade thomas booker for an eli ricks replacement i think it's i think it's interesting i think it i think it's fair to say that

it does tell us that they are they are a little bit worried about the secondary yeah i mean it's it's also possible that they're like look thomas booker or gave hall wasn't going to make the 53. We were going to try and see if we get sneak Gabe Hall through the practice squad. We might have gotten poached there. They kept six last year. I don't think they were.

That's not as much of a concern to me. Yeah. That's the only thing I can think in terms of like, all right, unless they just said that we're going to do Thomas Booker a solid. Now, keep in mind as well, the Raiders have a couple of people in their front office now that are familiar with Thomas Booker. That's true. Brandon Hunt is the VP of Player of Plainslaw, Anthony Patch.

They're with the Raiders now as well. You know, so they're familiar with Thomas Booker, familiar with his game. They watched him all last year. And so I don't know who would have made the call to, you know, incite this trade. But, you know, I think that it could be because they just let go Christian Wilkins in Las Vegas. So they're looking around and saying, okay, who are who are some, you know, younger defensive tackles that we can come in and try and get some upside out of? They may have tried to, you know, start this trade. Hmm. Super chat from Bryant, who says, do you think the Eagles talk to Booker before he was traded?

I mean, I imagine they give him a heads up. I'm sure he didn't read it on blue sky. That's tough. Yeah. You know, he's got all those guys here, Super Bowl champion. He's got to go move to Vegas. Oh, my God. Terrible.

Well, Zach's jealous of this point. I know. Yeah, I think it's interesting. And I also think that, you know, if you tell me Georgian Bennett can't play inside, that's important because one of my initial thoughts was, is this somebody else who can compete? with Mac Mac Williams if you want Cooper to play safety this season.

So if we cross that off, then it does seem to me a little bit more just about outside depth. Yeah, that's what I'm really quickly just pulling up. Jacorian Bennett's, his snap count right here, just so I can take a look and see how often he played inside. It wasn't a ton.

It's mostly been on the outside so far in his NFL career. Okay. All right, well, we will talk a little bit more about this trade tomorrow. We've also got practice to talk to tomorrow. Make sure that you join us. We are live every weekday at 2 o'clock. It's Osprey's week. Oh, man.

Like the video. Subscribe to the channel. I'm in a bad mood, friend. We lost our softball game tonight. I'm pissed. Is that the backwards hat? The genesis of the backwards hat. Yeah, I'm going backwards.

I go backwards hat sometimes at the softball game. I'm mad. I'm sorry. I don't know what happened. We're not hitting the ball. We scored two runs tonight. Oh, what are we doing? Unbelievable.

How'd you do? It was a guy on the other team I didn't like. Was that a on-site, don't like this guy? No. As the game went on? No, there was a play at second base where somebody from our team, from the outfield to second base. Rachel was playing second base.

She tagged the guy. It was like a little bit late, but then he comes off the base. And now his back is to the umpire. So the umpire can't really see that he came off the base. But Rachel's keeping the tag on. So I'm a short step. I'm like, hey, he came off the base. He's out.

He's out. And the um, you know, he says he couldn't see it. That's fine. I'm not at the ump. But this guy's then coming up to hit next. And he's like, well, she's got to hold the tag. It's like, I know the rules. You don't have to tell me what the rules are.

You're not involved in this conversation. And he's like, he's like pimping ground balls. He's pitching. Come on, give me a break. The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the man's planning from home plate. Nice. Was it in a good mood? And then they traded Thomas Booker.

Yeah. I mean, what's going on here? Unbelievable. Was they didn't trade Brandon Johnson. Well. Although this also, this doesn't help Brandon Johnson. Uh, different. I mean, you're telling me he doesn't play inside.

Yeah, but just another, it's another body in the corner room, though. Ah, this is, this is what, what this is, maybe that's what this is. maybe that's what this is, is just signaling to the league, they're going to keep Brandon Jones and under the radar. This is their subterfuge to make sure he can slide onto the practice spot. Okay. That's all we got. We're going to be back tomorrow 2 o'clock.

Thank you for the breakdown, Fran. My computer is about to die. So let's end this before we have an awkward ending. Jacorian Bennett is your newest member of the Philadelphia Eagles. Pour one out for Thomas Booker tonight wherever you are. Maybe it's not the last we've heard. Thomas Booker on the Ph.I. Eagles podcast. We'll see. For Fran Duffy and Julia, thank you so much. We will talk to you later this week tomorrow at 2 o'clock. And as always, we love you.