Relentless Titan: Eagles’ Jalen Carter Still Has a Monster Ceiling Ahead!

By the end of Year 2 in his NFL career, Jalen Carter was already the most gifted player on the NFL’s top-ranked defense and a Super Bowl LIX champion.

Next step for the second-team All-Pro is taking his place among the top of the league’s defensive tackles.

“I know who’s good and I know who everybody loves,” Carter said this spring. “Dexter Lawrence, Chris Jones. All of them. 

“I see it.”

However, Carter, 24, is focused inwardly and comparing himself with others who those on the outside regard as the top of the profession, is not a path the Georgia product wants to take.

“At the end of the day, I’m still grinding and just doing my own thing,” said Carter. “If my name pops up, then I guess congratulations to me. Just keep going.”

When it comes to game planning, No. 98 is already No. 1 on any opponent’s list when starting on Vic Fangio’s defense. However, Carter arrived with such grandiose expectations that the march to the top of his position group was almost expected. 

Carter’s big step forward in 2024-25 was conditioning, when 600 snaps as a rookie turned into 1,065 through the Super Bowl.

When asked about that workload and if it’s sustainable, Fangio rewound to the divisional round win over the Los Angeles Rams in which Carter essentially saved the season with consecutive monster pass rushes late in the game.

“In Jalen's case, the two plays he had at the end of the Rams game, which everybody has alluded to many times, those were his 68th and 69th snaps in that game,” the Eagles’ defensive coordinator said. “... He's still a young pup.”

The next step for Carter is ramping up the consistency and making sure his technique and fundamentals match his physical gifts.

“The good news about Jalen is twofold. One, he played very well for us last year, and two, he can still improve a lot,” Fangio said.

That’s a scary sentiment for those who have to face Carter in 2025.

“This is what I wanted to do. I wanted to be the best at what I do, try to be the best,” Carter said. “ I’m not there yet. I still got a lot of people in front of me that’s obviously been in the league a couple years, got years of experience on me. But I’m just going to keep grinding every day. 

“Not just me by myself working on specific things to get better, just being around the team having the guys support me also makes me also be one of the best in the league.”