PHILADELPHIA − Make no mistake, there’s a reason the Eagles have limited rookie defensive tackle Jalen Carter to just nine snaps total in two preseason games.
And Carter most likely won’t come anywhere near the field when the Eagles play their preseason finale against the Indianapolis Colts on Thursday. There’s no reason to give the Eagles opening-game opponent, the New England Patriots, any video evidence in advance of the Sept. 10 game.
Of course, that will last just for the one game.
After that, the Eagles’ opponents will quickly see what the Eagles have already seen through 3½ weeks of practice: Carter is practically unstoppable no matter where he lines up.
And he has lined up pretty much everywhere. In practice on Saturday, we saw a new spot as Carter lined up out wide and dropped into coverage with wide receiver Deon Cain, lined up as the slot receiver. Carter was with the second team on that play, but he got the vast majority of his reps with the first team in Fletcher Cox’s absence for knee soreness (Cox was back on a limited basis Sunday).
The ball wasn’t thrown in Cain’s direction as Carter, who’s 6-foot-4, 314 pounds, stayed with Cain on a short route.
Eagles offensive players have certainly seen the havoc that Carter has wrought. That includes right tackle Lane Johnson, who hasn’t allowed a sack in a game since late in the 2020 season. Johnson has gone against Carter occasionally in practice.
“I think Jalen Carter’s going to make a lot of noise this year, I really do,” Johnson said. “I think he can play right now and play at a very high level. … He’s very strong and he’s very quick, lateral quickness.
“He’s made a lot of people look silly in camp so far. I’ve been very impressed with him from Day 1. He has tremendous talent, ability, and he plays hard every down.”
Johnson was asked if there’s a defensive tackle in the NFL that he’d compare Carter to. At first, Johnson mentioned former Eagle Javon Hargrave, who had a career-high 11 sacks last season, before signing a free agent deal with the San Francisco 49ers.
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Then Johnson added another name to that − and, no, he didn’t say the Los Angeles Rams’ Aaron Donald, perhaps the greatest defensive tackle in NFL history − in eight-time Pro Bowl selection Geno Atkins, a member of the NFL’s all-decade team for the 2010s.
“He’s bigger than Geno Atkins, but pretty twitchy,” Johnson said about Carter. “He’s like a bigger Geno.”
Atkins played 11 seasons from 2010-20, all with the Cincinnati Bengals, and finished with 75½ sacks.
Cox, himself a six-time Pro Bowl selection at defensive tackle, said last week that he loves watching Carter “destroy people.”
Still, there have been some clues about Carter in the nine snaps spanning two preseason games. On his very first snap, on Aug. 12 against the Baltimore Ravens, Carter tossed aside offensive lineman Ben Cleveland and barreled in on quarterback Josh Johnson, wrapping him up just as Johnson threw the ball away.
Carter played one more snap that night. He then played seven snaps against the Browns last Thursday before coming out for the night. No need to provide video proof of Carter’s ability to the Patriots.
The Browns saw it in the two days of practice with the Eagles leading up to the game. That’s where Carter, rotating in with the first-team defensive line, showed how he can take over a game. In one practice alone, Carter had two “sacks,” recovered a fumble and deflected a pass.
Next up, the Colts will see plenty of Carter in the joint practice Tuesday.
And this is another way the joint practices help the Eagles more than the actual game. The teams in the joint practices are the only ones that have access to the practice video, and the Eagles don’t play either the Browns or the Colts this season.
So the Eagles can deploy Carter however they want and not have to worry about the Patriots getting it − unless Patriots coach Bill Belichick has a spy filming Eagles’ practices. But Belichick has certainly learned his lesson from the Spygate controversy nearly 20 years ago, right?
Eagles coaches, perhaps on purpose, haven’t gone out of their way to shower Carter with praise.
“I just think he keeps growing and taking steady, incremental steps to keep growing and developing as a player and as a person,” Eagles defensive coordinator Sean Desai said. “We’re continuing to stay on him with the details. He knows that he’s got to keep refining those. I think he’s taking ownership of that and he’s growing.”
But the Eagles players are much more descriptive, especially the offensive linemen who have gone against Carter. That includes tight end Dallas Goedert, who said he tried blocking him on two occasions in Saturday’s practice.
“It wasn’t easy,” Goedert said. “I don’t know if you can actually consider it blocking. … I held on for like a half-second, then I was out of there. I said, ‘I don’t know how the (offensive linemen) do it. This dude’s a problem.'”
The Eagles’ opponents will find that out soon enough.
Is Myles Jack retiring to prepare for Zombie Apocalypse?
Myles Jack reportedly informed the Eagles on Sunday that he is retiring, lasting just two weeks after the Eagles signed both him and Zach Cunningham.
But it was becoming apparent that Jack, a second-round pick of the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2016, was going to have a difficult time making the team, even though linebacker is considered the Eagles’ weakest position. After Jack signed, he admitted that he was considering going to “trade school,” saying that he wanted to be ready in case of the Zombie Apocalypse.
Jack was getting first-team reps during his first practice. But lately, he has been with the third team. Cunningham, a 2017 second-round pick of the Houston Texans, is now mostly working with the first-team defense next to Nakobe Dean.
In addition to Dean and Cunningham, the Eagles have Nicholas Morrow, a free agent signed in the spring; Christian Elliss, who has played just 29 snaps on defense in the past two years; and undrafted free agent Ben VanSumeren. Last week, the Eagles lost Shaun Bradley for the season with a torn Achilles.
The Eagles have a walkthrough practice Monday before hosting the Colts for a joint practice session Tuesday. The Eagles will then face the Colts on Thursday night in the preseason finale.
Contact Martin Frank at mfrank@delawareonline.com. Follow on X at Mfranknfl.
