Darius Slay called Jalen Carter with a warning after ‘Spit-gate’; Jerry Jones nearly ‘dropped my teeth’ over the incident
Slay spent six seasons with the Eagles and two with Carter, but now plays for the Steelers. He referred to the defensive tackle as his “little bro” on “The Richard Sherman Podcast.”
Jalen Carter made the wrong kind of headlines in the Eagles home opener. The 24-year-old defensive tackle was ejected before the first play from scrimmage for spitting on Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott. Since then, plenty of his former teammates have weighed in on “Spit-gate,” including Jason Kelce and Darius Slay.
“I called him,” Slay, who signed with the Pittsburgh Steelers in the offseason, said on The Richard Sherman Podcast. “I called him up and was like, ‘Hey man, you good?’ I got to make sure he’s good in spirit. You know, he’s a young kid that’s got a lot on his shoulders just from being, you know. But talking to him, he said [Dak] spit at him first, which now we done clearly saw that. I said, ‘Hey, now we know he spit around your area, but it’s another level from spitting around your area to spitting on someone.’”
Carter will forfeit his game check of $57,222 but was lucky to avoid missing additional time, with the NFL counting the game he missed in Week 1 as his one-game suspension. That makes Carter available for the Eagles’ Week 2 game against the Kansas City Chiefs, and as Carter prepares for the Super Bowl rematch, Slay warned him that other teams may put his pride to the test.
“He understands it,” Slay said. “He said, ‘Slay, that will never happen again in my career.’ That’s my little bro, man. When he says stuff like that, I know he’s going to make that happen. I told him though, ‘You’re going to get tried now, for sure. That’s the game plan now, to see if you’re going to crash out.’ And he’s not. He’s not. He’s going to be locked in. My dog going to overcome all of that, man. I got faith in him. I got faith in my dog. He’s locked in.”
The third-year defensive tackle was ranked No. 43 on the NFL’s list of the top 100 players after a successful sophomore season with the Eagles, capped off by a postseason in which he recorded 20 quarterback pressures, nine tackles, two sacks, and one forced fumble in three games.
And this type of production wasn’t anything new for Carter, who finished the regular season with 42 tackles, 4.5 sacks, 61 combined quarterback hits and pressures, and two forced fumbles while playing almost every defensive snap. His presence on the field makes a huge difference for the Eagles, so his absence on Thursday night was a gift to the Dallas Cowboys.
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones seems to agree.
“I liked to have dropped my teeth when I started seeing [Carter] walk off, because he’s such a fabulous football player,” Jones said on 105.3 The Fan. “I said, ‘Well, I guess the man upstairs is evening it up. We don’t have Micah [Parsons]; they’re letting us [not] have him.’”
Despite the bizarre start to Thursday’s home opener, Carter’s ejection wasn’t the most shocking part of the night to Slay. The part that baffled him the most was seeing Dallas’ offensive line not do anything to protect Prescott after Carter spit.
“I hope the Dallas O-line didn’t see that happen,” Slay said. “Because, boy, I’m telling you right now, if somebody would have spit on Hurts, [Jordan] Mailata, Lane [Johnson], and maybe the whole Philly stands would have came down there. I’m just being real. I’m just telling you those boys don’t play about Hurts, now …
“If Hurts walks toward another opponent’s defense, I promise you, Lane, Mailata, Landon [Dickerson], they are all turning around to make sure he is all right.”