Eagles training camp news: Death of a meme, ripple effects of kissing and a useful WR3

In less than a month, the Philadelphia Eagles are going to kick off the 2025 NFL season by hanging the banner in front of Jerry Jones’s face. Between now and then, they have three preseason games and a couple of joint practices with the Browns.

In the past week, there’s been a lot of news out of training camp. We’ve seen a trade, a wide receiver starting to get comfortable, and the versatility of a defensive back. Here’s what’s going on.

Head kisses and corner depth

On July 24th, 2025, the Raiders released defensive tackle Christian Wilkins, who they had just signed to a four-year $110 million contract on March 14th, 2024. Initially, they said he was released because of the way he was rehabbing some kind of injury, which was weird because the dude is a good ball player. 

Then it came out that there was some weird locker room stuff going on with him, and that kind of made a little bit more sense because he has been known to do some weird/bad stuff. AND THEN it came out that he had an HR report filed against him because he kissed one of his teammates on the forehead. As far as HR reports that get filed in the city of Las Vegas, you have to think that's on the tamer side of things. It’s a bizarre situation, but whatever... that’s for the Raiders to deal with. All that matters is how the whole thing affects the Eagles.

The Raiders had an opening at defensive tackle, so the Eagles traded Thomas Booker IV to them in exchange for cornerback Jakorian Bennett.

Booker is also a good player, and he’s definitely going to have more playing time in Vegas than he would with the Eagles, so that’s good for him… but also, he just got traded from the top-tier team to a bottom-to-middle tier team, so that stinks for him.

The first thing you have to ask when it comes to a trade is “Why?” We already know that the Raiders had a hole on their roster, so that side is covered. For the Eagles to trade away Booker, it (probably) means Clint Hurtt, Vic Fangio, Nick Sirianni, and Howie Roseman are all very comfortable with the defensive line and the depth they have behind the starters with Gabe Hall and rookie Ty Robinson.

The Raiders trading away Bennett: Now, their cornerback room has rookie Darien Porter, Eric Stokes, and Decamerion Richardson. The shortest of those three guys is Stokes at six feet and two inches. Jakorian Bennet is five feet and ten inches. Pete Carroll (who is the Raiders' new head coach) loves himself a big cornerback. 

The best defense he assembled was the “Legion of Boom” in the mid-2010s. Those cornerbacks were Richard Sherman (six feet and three inches), Brandon Browner (six feet and four inches). Carroll’s got a type, and Bennett isn’t that type.

As for the Eagles getting Bennett, it’s pretty simple: neither Kelee Ringo nor Adoree’ Jackson has separated themselves, and the defense needs some depth at the position. Sirianni was asked about the trade, and he said, “...We thought that was an opportunity to add some depth at corner... Obviously, we’ll miss Book and wish him the best, and we feel good about our depth at defensive tackle, but just a way to add some depth there at corner.”

I guess the word of the day was ‘depth.’

Jahan Dotson’s getting work

More often than not, this training camp, either A.J. Brown or DeVonta Smith has been sitting out of practice with some kind of injury. That means more of the depth wide receivers have been getting reps with the first team offense. Most notably, Jahan Dotson. 

Just a reminder on his saga: The Eagles traded for him on August 22nd, 2024, which means that he didn’t get a whole training camp. It turns out that’s pretty important because he didn’t have time to build any chemistry with Jalen Hurts. That became super clear in Week 4 when A.J. Brown was out with a hammy and DeVonta Smith was out with a concussion. Dotson ended that game with two catches for 11 yards. Luckily, his incredibly quiet year ended with an equally incredibly loud catch to set up the Eagles' first touchdown in the Super Bowl.

The hope is that he’s going to pick up right where he left off, and it sounds like that’s what’s going to happen. 

Dotson hasn’t done a press conference in over a week, so we have to base his recent progress on what the guys around him are saying.

DeVonta Smith said, “Oh, I think he feels great. You know, when you get traded and come in the week of a game, you just get thrown in there to go play, and you don’t really have the grasp of the offense and time with the quarterback. I think it’s tough, but you see it. He’s out there making the plays. Him and Jalen’s relationship, you can see that it's paying off with the work that they put in.”

Jalen Hurts has been asked about him twice. On July 29th, he said,  “I think, you know, you see improvements, but it’s more so for him coming in and finding that sense of comfort on where he is with this group. He came here last year very late and was a late addition, so you never really got to build that chemistry, and I think now he’s got a feel and understanding for what he wants to do, how he wants to do it, and it’s just a matter of his comfort on this team…”

Then on Tuesday, Hurts said, “Jahan had a big-time catch today against cover zero. You know, you build those things based off of time and reps and the efforts put in… obviously, I have a lot of confidence in Jahan. I had confidence in him as the year went on last year, and for him to make the big-time plays he made toward the end of the year, that was all based off of confidence.”

No one’s doubting Dotson’s skill. It’s all about getting him comfortable in the offense and building confidence with the guy who’s throwing him the ball. So yeah, it stinks that A.J. Brown isn’t out there, but the positive is that (hopefully) defenses are going to have to think about more than just Brown, Smith, Barkley, Goedert, and Hurts… which is already way too much.

The time to retire a beloved song is nigh

When he was drafted, a bunch of people thought Cooper DeJean was going to be a safety… probably definitely mostly because he’s a white guy. Then last year, he didn’t take a single snap at safety, and one of the best songs in the history of man hit the zeitgeist:

Well, unfortunately, it looks like the times are changing, and it’s all due to DeJean being a super sick football player. 

Last season, he only got time when the defense was in nickel (five DBs). Fortunately, that was the package over 80% of the time. This season, he’s going to be on the field even when the defense is in base because the defense is straight-up better when he’s on the field. 

In the spring, when the defense was in base, DeJean was getting snaps at outside cornerback, but during training camp, he’s been getting a bunch of snaps at safety. Vic Fangio was asked about wanting to see DeJean playing at that spot and he said, “Yeah, and just like I thought, he can be a good safety. Just the other day, we had a route that we struggled with last year, in games to pick up, and he picked it, he did it like he’d been a safety his whole life. So yeah, he’ll be a good safety if we ever need him there.”

DeJean was also asked about how comfortable he was playing safety in base, “I’ve definitely got more comfortable. It took a few practices to get comfortable back there to understand how much space you’re working with, reading run/pass from a different perspective. So it took a few practices, but I’m definitely starting to feel more comfortable at that position.”

Good lord… he said it only took him a few practices. Countless players have had their careers end because they were never able to make the switch from corner to safety, and they had multiple years to make the switch. DeJean did it in a week… that’s unbelievable. 

For reference, other players who have successfully made that switch are Charles Woodson and Rod Woodson. They were pretty, pretty, pretty good. 

DeJean did say that most of his playbook is stuff at nickel, which is nice. But as soon as he takes a snap next to Reed Blankenship, the opps are going to be coming for his neck. To be fair, they’ll be criticizing him for being a defensive Joker, so it’s actually more of a compliment.

Regardless, make sure you get your “Cooper DeJean is Not a Safety” listens in while you can. 

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