Eagles Blasted for ‘Mistake’ Trading Disgruntled $51 Million Edge Rusher
One thing the Philadelphia Eagles don’t have — at least not through 2 games — is an elite edge rusher.
Which is kind of hard to believe. Because just one year ago the Eagles had at least 2 players who may have fallen in that category in Josh Sweat and Bryce Huff, who they signed to a 3-year, $51.1 million free agent contract in March 2024.
Sweat left to the Arizona Cardinals on a 4-year, $76.4 million free agent contract after leading the Eagles in sacks and winning a Super Bowl.
Huff spent one miserable season with the Eagles and was a healthy scratch in the Super Bowl before he was traded to the San Francisco 49ers in exchange for a conditional 2026 fifth round pick.
Now, the Eagles are being called out for moving too quickly to trade Huff, who made it clear how unhappy he was playing for defensive coordinator Vic Fangio in Philly.
“The Eagles made a mistake,” NFL Network’s Brian Baldinger said. “He’s not a linebacker. He’s a pass rush specialist. He’s gotta put his hand in the dirt. He’s not an outside linebacker like they wanted him to be in Philadelphia … (49ers defensive coordinator) Robert Saleh knows what Huff is. He closed the game out against the Saints like Nick Bosa did the game before. Nick has somebody who can come off the edge opposite of him right now. Huff is better than anybody they had over there at DE the last couple of years.“
Huff Has Looked Sharp With 49ers
Huff has looked like the player he was with the Jets in the first 4 years of his career, when Saleh was his head coach, and he closed out a win over the New Orleans Saints in Week 2 with a strip sack in the fourth quarter.
Through 2 games, Pro Football Focus sees Huff playing like one of the NFL’s very best at his position. His 81.3 overall grade from PFF has him at 15th out of a possible 147 players at his position and his 6 QB pressures are also among the NFL leaders.
It’s a far cry from the player who looked lost in Fangio’s system in Philly and finished with 2.5 sacks and 4 QB hits in 2024 while missing 5 games due to wrist surgery. That was just one year after Huff had career highs of 10.0 sacks and 21 QB hits with the Jets — numbers that landed him his monster deal in Philly.
Huff Took Potshots At Philly Following Trade
After his trade, Huff sounded off on his time the Eagles during an interview with The SFNiners YouTube Channel.
“There’s a plethora of things that went down,” Huff said. “I don’t wanna get into specifics. Being in the league for five years, I kinda knew what it felt like for me to be in a good situation. I gotta look out for myself and do what I think is best. I kind of knew where it was headed fairly early on into the season, probably even training camp if I’m being honest. So when everything popped off, it was just like ‘Yeah, all right let’s get to work.’ “
Caleb Williams Addresses Revenge Game Opportunity vs. Matt Eberflus
Getty
Caleb Williams will get his first opportunity to play against former Chicago Bears coach Matt Eberflus this Sunday
Legenedary singer Frank Sinatra once said, ‘The best revenge is massive success.’ In the NFL, sometimes you’re provided the unique opportunity to achieve massive success at the expense of the one individual you’d hope to get revenge on, and this weekend, that’s the exact position that
Williams and the Chicago Bears will be welcoming the Dallas Cowboys to Soldier Field on Sunday afternoon, and standing on the opposite sideline overseeing the Cowboys defense is former Bears head coach Matt Eberflus, who coached the first 12 games of Caleb Williams’ rookie season before getting fired. Despite such a depressing tenure in Chicago, Eberflus was brought in to be the defensive coordinator in Dallas under new Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer.
Now it should be mentioned, while there has been no legitimate nastiness between Caleb Williams and Matt Eberflus — only glancing comments that could be loosely considered adversarial or whispers of discontent — both the young quarterback and former head coach could look back on their abbreviated season together and have something at least resembling ill-will.
For Caleb, the 2024 season will be remembered as a rookie year that was submarined by a handful of perplexing coaching decisions made by head coach who had already lost the locker room and was clearly in over his head sitting in the big seat at Halas Hall. This brief experience indisputably stunted Williams’ growth and was largely why Bears fans were so enthused by the hire of Ben Johnson, an offensive-minded coach who will hopefully get the best out of Caleb.
But on the eve of this game where Caleb Williams will have the chance to make a statement at the expense of his former head coach, he’s taking the high road in the lead-up to the game, not giving Flus or the Cowboys defense any sort of bulletin board material, or any of the reporters in attendance an eye-popping headline that they could use for their story.
“It was good being able to become a Chicago Bear, and he [Matt Eberflus] made that decision,” Williams told reporters. “Happy to be here. Our time together wasn’t wasted. Obviously, we didn’t win as much as we wanted, but we’re past that, and we’re trying to focus on being 1-0 this week.”
How Will Bears Offense Prep For Matt Eberflus?
Despite the best efforts of reporters on the Bears beat in Chicago, Williams wouldn’t even tip his hand and elaborate on what it’s been like to prepare for the defense that will be coached up by his former head coach, insisting the prep has been no different than any other week.
“It’s the same as preparing each week for me,” Williams added. “You gotta go out there and execute the plays that Ben [Johnson] calls. I’ve played a bunch of ball against that kind of defense. Obviously, Matt [Eberflus] was my coach last year, so just being able to move past all of that and being able to go out there and help the Chicago Bears be 1-0 this week.”
Now as long as Caleb Williams has as firm of a grasp on the gameplan this week as he does of what he’s supposed to say in response to any question about Matt Eberflus, the Bears will likely be in good shape. But Williams’ new head coach isn’t content to take the high road.
When Ben Johnson was asked about whether he was concerned about Matt Eberflus and the Cowboys defense having the leg up on the Bears because he would theoretically know how to prepare for Caleb Williams, Johnson offered a sharp rebuttal.
“Yeah, well, we’ve got guys in the building that know how his mind works. So we have some information on just schematically how he liked to approach my offense in general and his feelings on Caleb,”
While Ben Johnson may not be worried, he better hope the Bears are alert and play with a
