Meet the two secret stars of Eagles draft weekend

You won’t hear the names Phil Bhaya and Alan Wolking too often during draft weekend.

Who?

But over the last couple years, they’ve been two of the most important people in the Eagles’ organization.

Bhaya is the Eagles’ director of draft management, and Wolking is the Eagles’ director of player personnel.

And while Howie Roseman is the general manager and has final say over who the Eagles draft, Bhaya and Wolking are the guys who keep going to Athens and scouting Georgia football players.

Now, it’s not like Jordan Davis, Nakobe Dean, Jalen Carter and Nolan Smith were secrets. But it was Bhaya and Wolking who scouted them, studied them and ultimately recommended them.

“Phil Bhaya is primarily responsible for the SEC,” Roseman said Friday night. “He has over-the-top responsibilities as well. Phil is a local guy who played at Princeton, and he’s a tremendous young scout. He has a pretty wide skill set. And then Alan Wolking goes every year, and obviously we have other guys who have been in there.”

Who are Bhaya and Wolking?

Bhaya grew up across the river in Haddonfield, where he starred for the Bulldogs in football and lacrosse at Haddonfield High School. At Princeton, he earned All-Ivy League honors as a defensive back twice and was captain when the Tigers won the 2013 conference title with an 8-2 record.

Notably, Bhaya was also highly decorated for his academics at Princeton. He earned all-conference and all-district academic honors and as a senior received Princeton’s prestigious Harland “Pink” Baker Award for excellence in scholarship and athletics.

After he graduated, he joined the Eagles as a very low-level scout in 2014 and has worked his way up from scouting assistant to NFS (National Football Service) scout in 2016 and then Northeast Area scout in 2020, Southeast Area Scout in 2021 and, for the past two years, director of draft management.

Clearly on the fast track within the organization, Bhaya is a rising star who Roseman trusts tremendously.

Wolking has also been with the Eagles a long time, gradually working his way up from a midwest area scout in 2011 to director of player personnel.

He’s got an interesting background as well. He grew up in Upper Arlington, Ohio, just outside Columbus, and coached high school football for several years before working with Ohio State’s program while attending grad school and then coaching defensive backs at Northwestern.

It was long-time Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald who suggested scouting to Wolking and first got him an interview with the Eagles back during the Andy Reid era.

You don’t have to watch many Georgia football games to realize how talented guys like Davis, Dean, Carter and Smith are, but Bhaya and Wolking are the guys going deep into Georgia and other SEC players, studying their film, talking to their academic advisers, watching them practice, meeting with their coaches and presenting what they learn to Roseman, senior director of college scouting Anthony Patch and the rest of the Eagles’ vast scouting machine.

“I think those guys do a tremendous job in the SEC,” Roseman said. “It was funny because I was saying this, and I’m not trying to overshadow those guys because they do a great job, but I went to Georgia last year at practice, and I remember coming back and (Nick Sirianni) was like, ‘Who did you like there?’ And I’m like, ‘I like the whole defense.’”

How important is the work that Bhaya and Wolking have done?

Davis, Carter, Dean and Smith are the future of the Eagles’ defense, a unit the Eagles hope compliments the Jalen Hurts-led offense and helps the Eagles reach another Super Bowl or two in the next few years.

And don’t lose sight of the fact that the Eagles have drafted plenty of other SEC players under Bhaya and Wolking’s watch, notably Landon Dickerson, DeVonta Smith and Jalen Hurts, who didn’t finish at Alabama but sure made a name for himself there. 

In all, the Eagles have drafted 16 players in the first four rounds over the last four years, and nine of them played in the SEC – the Georgia and Alabama guys plus Jack Driscoll.

“It’s just kind of amazing to think of all these guys that we got,” Roseman said. “And they’re lobbying for like three more (Georgia) guys.

“What is it, the Premier League? Where they relegate teams? I was worried they were going to relegate us to the SEC if we took more Georgia guys.”

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