PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - Emergency Pod: Eagles trade for Michael Carter to help in the secondary

Episode Date: October 29, 2025

Howie Roseman you dog! As the Eagles look for help in the secondary, here comes Michael Carter from the Jets, who is a slot player by trade. Could this presage Cooper DeJean moving to the outside? And with John Metchie heading up I-95, does that mean more work for Darius Cooper and foreshadow A.J. Brown staying in Philadelphia? Fran Duffy and Bo Wulf break it down. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello, everybody. H.O.I. Emergency podcast live from the Xfinity Studio and presented by Bet365 and Ashley, Bo Wolf, joined on the Xfinity mobile call-in line by Fran Duffy as Howie Roseman. Eagles are on a buy. The trade deadline is approaching. You know he's eager. And he has tapped into the NFL's market of hot online slots. That's right. Michael Carter the second from the New York Jets. The Eagles are trading a sixth round pick and John Mechie to acquire Michael Carter and a seventh round pick. Fran, what was your initial reaction? Well, my initial reaction was, you know, Darius Cooper, a more of a path for him to be able to get a little bit more extra playing time.

So congratulations there. But a shot across the bow for another former Duke corner, Brandon Johnson. I mean, they're clearly just don't have the faith in him. He's very nicely already set up to be the long-term answer here. Michael Carter the second is on the final year of his rookie deal. I think this is a clear succession plan that has been created. Well, look, Carter is a guy that's got a lot of pelts on the wall. He's played a lot of football in the NFL.

It was a fourth round pick a few years back in 2021. And while his the starting time and the amount of the effective football we've seen from him, it's been a couple years since we've seen him. And like that early high level of play playing for Robert Sala as a young player. But still, this is a guy that has tax. out. Okay, let's get into the player first and then let's get into what we think it means for the Seagos defense because I know that, you know, you have, this trade happened like 15 minutes ago and in that time, you have watched every one of his targets from the past two seasons,

two seasons, all of the breakups that he had in the two years before that. What have you learned about Michael Carter, who is, let's be clear, a slot corner and not someone who will be here to compete on the outside? Yeah, to me, this is a, a really, really feisty competitive corner. This is a guy that's one of those like pesky play personalities. To me like if you're looking at his peak, like the best version of Michael Carter,

you think of like the best version of Avanti Maddox, right? I think that that's kind of what you're looking at there. I think he's probably a little bit bigger. I've got to look at the official measurements from the combine back in 2021, but a little bit bigger. Listed at 510, 184 just for the record. Okay. So similar kind of body type.

That's why he's been kind of pigeonholed as a slot-only player. As I mentioned, when he first got drafted, he got thrown right into the fire and was an early starter for that defense. The playing time is kind of tapered off in the last couple of years. Obviously, things kind of went south for them.

Last year, they fire Robert Sala early on, and they promote Jeff Ulbrook to head coach. And so there was a little bit of defensive upheaval. That unit really fell off in the second half of the year. And then this year, it's a new defensive scheme entirely. And so I do think that that's a reason why they were willing to move on. from Michael Carter.

I'm going to be honest. I got a little bit more juice for this one that I did when they traded for Jacorian Bennett. Right? Like I think that there's a little bit more proven, like capable starting level of play. Now, is it enough to say like, all right, I want to insert him here

and move Cooper Dugnesee outside. We'll talk about that in a little bit. But he's a competitive player. He's good. The ball production has not been great. You know, that was one of the things where I was like, start. I'm like, all right, he only had,

he had one PBU last year. He's had none so far this year. He hasn't had a pick going back to 2023, I think was the last time. He got his hands on a football and secured an interception. So, you know, the ball production has not been there. But I think when you're looking at his route anticipation, you know, again, the competitiveness does show up. He'll come down and defend the run. I thought that he was, I thought he was showed a little bit more of a feel in zone as opposed to man, but he can do a little bit of both.

He's played primarily man coverage this year. So, solid player. But again, I don't know that it's like a huge, huge upgrade, but this is a guy that can compete. 29 and an eighth inch arms, which speaks to maybe the lack of ball production there. But did you see the requisite physicality for someone who would have to be playing inside

in Vic Fangio's defense and what he wants there? Definitely. Now, I think that obviously he's not as big as Cooper DeGine, right? So they may not be as willing to match against 12 personnel in their nickel defense. But if now they're going to try and match that more often with their base defense because they want to get Nikobie Dean and Jihad Campbell on the field together and you feel, all right, we're going to be leaning more into base anyway

than if that could be more of a reason to lean into a move like this as well. Okay. So let's talk about the big picture here because this gives them optionality, right? I think I'm guessing that that is the goal here because obviously they want to address the secondary in some form or fashion. and for the reasons we talked about, I mean, I asked Mina Kimes about it on the show today, the possibility of trading for literally Michael Carter the second

because... Huge flex. The idea... I think we deserve to flex on that. Absolutely. Great call. Yes, absolutely. Easier to acquire a nickel corner than a starting outside corner.

And so if you think that at some point, you are not going to be able to trust Kiela Ringo on the outside, or Dori Jackson, or Jacorian Bennett, who you continue to throw under the bus every time we got a chance to talk about anything related to the Seagulls team. Maybe you do think that you're better suited taking a step back inside and letting Cooper DeGine be on the outside and Nicol.

Do you think that this foreshadows that? Yeah, I think that it's probably, it probably sets up for a move like that. Now, you know, I'll be interested to see if there is a corresponding move, you know, in the secondary. We know that they made, they sent Perry Nickerson down to the practice squad earlier on this week. I think that was a precursor certainly to this kind of move. But, you know, what does this mean for Dory Jackson's return?

I think it'll be interesting to see if they're done at that spot or if there's something else, another domino that has got to fall. Yeah, I think my guess, I would be surprised if they're making this move and hot-shotting him into the starting lineup, starting in Green Bay, right? And they're going to spend the byweek rejiggering the secondary and just moving Cooper to Gene to the outside of nickel full-time. To me, it's more like optionality. And it is a, it is a very meager cost to just upgrade the Perry Nickerson spot.

Is that, is that how you see it? Potentially, but I mean, they, they're only playing dime. Like, they play dime, like, you know, a couple snaps a game. So, like, I don't know that it's even worth the, the marginal pick swap that you made to just improve on those couple snaps. I think that what we could see happen. And we know that this isn't the way, I mean, look, this is not. the way that Vic Fangio played last year. Last year, they basically played the same 11 guys, no matter the offensive formation and personnel group. And they were like, yeah, this is the way

that we are going to match up. I think the big thing right now is that there is a possibility that they could now move forward. And let's say they want to play with a regular nickel where it's like, Michael Carter's in the slot and Cooper Dachines outside. And then you have your big nickel where just slides in. And then you've got either Kili or Doree on the outside. And you've got your base defense and you've got your dimes. We saw them do this in. in 2023, you know, they had all those different personnel packages back there and they were just trying to Frankenstein it. It's possible that they try and go down a path that way or maybe Michael Carter is the full-time nickel. That could be a possibility as well. Yeah, I mean, I think

what we learned from Vic last year, I thought was that he wanted to do that less and just sort of had his core guys. But maybe that's, you know, you can only do so much with what you have. I think it's going to be, I think it's going to be interesting. I'm curious to see how this all plays out from a like what was he asked to do perspective and changing schemes and like having to get thrown into the mix halfway through I feel like nickel is a pretty

difficult position to do that at but in terms like what was he asked to do what would he have been asked to do in the Aaron Glenn defense and the Jeff Ulbrick defense. Yeah with the Aaron Glenn defense honestly just but and again all I did was buzz through like the targets where he was the closest defender in coverage right? So you know it wasn't like I was watching

full games in the last half hour. But I think the big thing is it was a lot of man coverage. And that's to be expected. You know, Aaron Glenn coming from Detroit, they played a lot of man, a very aggressive press, like up in your face, man-to-man coverage scheme. When you look back to Robert Sala, they have been traditionally more zone, more cover three. Like, yeah, they'll play man in spots, but it's been a little bit more zone-heavy. So he's got experience playing in a zone-heavy scheme.

But the nomenclature, the verbiage, like all of that stuff is going to be different. So he's going to have two weeks now to kind of get up to scheme. I agree with you that it's probably unlikely that they're going to just kind of shoehorn him in as the full-time guy right away. But could they be working their way towards that by the time they get to, you know, week 12, week 13? I wouldn't say that that's completely off the table either. Make sure that you check out the diehard sale on all p.hly.com. We got the Brandon Graham special, 55% off to become a pHLY diehard member. You get access to all the stories written about the just exciting us.

Sending Sixers and Flyers by Charlie O'Connor and Kyle Neuback and Derek Bonner. You get E.J. Smith, Les Bowen and Fran Duffy writing about the Eagles, all that good stuff. Check it out on all pHLY.com. Let's talk about the other part here, Fran, which is, I mean, John Metchie was not playing a lot for this Eagles offense. But, I mean, do you take like an inch of it to read? Okay, maybe AJ Brown's not going anywhere because they're willing to trade a wide receiver? No, I don't think so. I think this was more the,

honestly, we talked about this on Monday with talking about Darius Cooper was like, oh, like, hey, it used to be that John Metchy was like that dirty work receiver and was like, you know, being asked to come in and block safeties and they were willing to plug Cooper into that role right away as he was

taken off injured reserve. So, I guess that was probably more the precursor to this move than anything else. All right, I'm going to call Vinny Curry because he played with Michael Carter Jr. Hey, made. Nice. Let's see if Vinny will answer the phone. Man, there's so many possibilities for how this could go.

Yeah, I'm going to tell them, I'll tell them right away we're live. Let's see how it goes. Okay. I wonder, I'm wondering, so with E.J. Smith being in Paris, with E.J. being in Paris, like, is it Michael Carter, duh, for him? Like, is the pronunciation right? Vinnie! We're live on the show right now.

Tell us what you played with Michael Carter the second in New York. What are the Eagles getting? Yo, straight dog. Somebody that's going to leave it all out. there. Somebody else going to play hard and understand the game. IQ is often charged at that position. The last year I was with him, he was like rated like one of the highest nickels in the game and he could play outside.

He can go, man, the dude is a baller, bro. And I'm so excited. You know how I can get overly excited. It's true. I like this. We're filling up. We're filling up the roster of Vinnie Curry guys. You feel like he could come in and play right away inside.

Oh, yes, yeah. Oh, yeah. He's definitely coming in, play right away. How about, like, he's, he likes to me. He's good for the locker room, you know. You know, that, I mean, that locker room is a special locker room. You got to be a, you know, a special kind of person to be up in there, man.

His personality fit right along with the car. Is he like a talkative sleigh type guy or more of a reserved, like, you know, James Bradbury type personality? So, 50, 50, you know, all that depends on how you ball and what's out of a bag you wake up all. Ooh, I like that. All right, Vinnie. Amazing. We answered the call.

We love that. All right. Thank you so much, Vinnie Curry. We will talk to you soon. See you on the postgame show. Unbelievable. I mean, come on. Give it up.

Give it up. Give it up. All right. Any final thoughts here, friend? Do you think, do you think how he's done? I wouldn't. I wouldn't say that he's ever done. He would say that adding, you know, fixing the roster is a 365 day a year process.

Do you think this is a, do you think this is a, our last emergency pod? If I had to do turkeys, I would say 55, well, we'll go 60 that we're not done. We got another emergency pot in us in the next seven to six days.

How about you? Yeah, I think that's right. I might even go just a tick higher. I would say, I'd say 70 turkeys that we're going to do another emergency pod. So that would be for a pass, because you can't imagine they're going to add another corner right i mean they could i guess that's

possible i guess they could uh it could be it could be jack stole okay i really do think they're probably done a tight end because of the fred johnson stuff but maybe i'm wrong yeah um i guess i guess that's i mean unless it's an outgoing situation wow yeah yeah we don't need to get into that here okay all right great stuff is david is david baker still there You know what? I think I just missed him. I saw him come. They said that he broke the elevator, obviously. Big guy.

Oh, no. It just got fixed. I was waiting for the elevator to come down. And then all of a sudden, the thing goes and, yeah, apparently it turns out he was just fee, FIFO Fumman his way. And it broke, it was too much on the weight. So just an unbelievable show. It's crazy. He ate Andrew.

Oh, no. He's gone. We just got to produce for back. Now we're doubting. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Well, it's, look, it was fun listening to ZB and DB today at 2 o'clock. So if anyone that's watching this, if they have not gone and watch that podcast, make sure they go back and relive that great experience. Love that guy. All right. Thank you, Fran. Go back to your den. We will pull you out if we need you. Otherwise, you're going to be on the show on Friday with the professor. Look forward to that. Otherwise, we've got you covered anytime something happens here on PHLY. Thanks to Lindsay for making it happen.

emergency pod what a day that's right all of us here at p hl y thanks for listening we will talk to you tomorrow at two o'clock and as always we love you you all silly like the mayor you say i go now once it comes back up you got chocolate all over your face