$152 million Jalen Carter doesn’t care that Eagles fans think he’s dogging it. That’s the root problem for Nick Sirianni.
He fell in the 2023 draft due to concerns about maturity, and now that he's been paid he's the focal point of a locker room in disarray as former Eagles Nick Foles and Jason Kelce sound the alarm.
Jalen Carter, presumably under threat of an NFL fine for ignoring mandatory availability rules, ended his three-week media boycott Wednesday. In his responses to questions regarding his execution and his heart, he deflected, condescended, and insulted the people who pay him, i.e., the fans.
Grading on a $152 million curve, the amount of his summertime contract extension, Carter, an elite defensive tackle, has been the worst player on a 2-5 disaster of a team. After Monday night’s weak exhibition during a home blowout loss to the Cowboys, in which Carter was manhandled and seemed uninterested, Carter has become the poster child for the Eagles’ underwhelming effort.
“Trash,” Carter said when asked of his play this season, which sounded genuinely self-critical … but he then turned snarky: “I think you asked me this last year and the year before and I gave you the same answer: ‘Trash.’”
That isn’t accountability. That’s passive aggression.
He then dug the hole deeper.
“Not to my expectations and, well, I guess not to what the fans want. Don’t really matter what they want.”
Marcus Hayes alerts
Really? Where do you think that $152 million is coming from, big guy? It’s coming from the folks who pay for cable TV and tickets and parking and beer and cheesesteaks and those $200 No. 98 jerseys in midnight green that say “Carter” on the back.
Eagles coach Nick Sirianni, hopeful of retaining his $17 million job, insists he doesn’t have problems with his locker room.
Well, Jalen Carter is a problem in his locker room. He’s not the only problem, but he’s the biggest problem.
Former Eagles think so, and don’t think just because they’re former Eagles they aren’t still connected.
Nick Foles, the Eagles’ Super Bowl LII MVP, said Tuesday on his podcast that, in his view from afar, the Eagles have “culture” problems.
The guy who gave the greatest celebration speech in history after Super Bowl LII, former Eagles center Jason Kelce, essentially agreed with Foles during Kelce’s weekly Thursday morning radio stint on 94 WIP.
The Eagles gave up a season-high 204 rushing yards to the Cowboys on Monday night.
“A big part of fixing it on defense, especially stopping the run, is going harder than the guy across from you,” Kelce said.
His bigger issue was with Carter blaming the rest of the defense for his own poor performance: “This is not a single [person] sport, game, where I’m out there doing everything myself. It’s a team sport where we need all 11 on the field or whatever the case may be for that week.”
If Kelce had been drinking one of his Garage Beers, he’d have spit it out.
“That’s a deferral,” Kelce said. “Is he being accountable? When you’re making $100 million and you’re the top dog … it ain’t ever on anybody else. [It’s] ‘I’m gonna go out there and dominate.’ … At defensive tackle? There ain’t a lot of variable there, brother. In one moment he’s taking accountability. In the next, he’s putting it on somebody else."
Yep.
Carter is not a cornerback or a linebacker. He is the highest-paid defensive player in franchise history, and he blamed the rest of the defense for his poor results while playing a position that demands immediate one-on-one wins at the point of attack.
Then, he complained about having to take responsibility for it.
“I don’t think I’m a public spokesperson,” Carter said Wednesday. “I think y’all just want to talk to me because we’re losing.”
Yes. That is a fact.
That also is his responsibility.
Left tackle Jordan Mailata has become the team spokesman since Kelce retired after 2023. He used the word “accountability” four times in the first four minutes of his postgame interview Monday. Perhaps someone should define that word for Carter.
To be clear: He doesn’t need to be accountable to the press. He needs to be accountable to the people who pay him. The people he doesn’t care about. Fans pay players. Players damn well better care if the fans think they’re not earning their paychecks.
That’s doubly true if the player’s boss thinks he isn’t earning it, either.
Carter got paid because, when he feels like it, he can be as dominant as Fletcher Cox, or Jerome Brown, or any defensive tackle in Eagles history.
Defensive coordinator Vic Fangio agrees. He also agrees that Carter isn’t playing to his potential.
“He’s just got to get the mindset to where he’ll be consistent all the time,” Fangio said.
Pressed, Fangio doubled down:
“You just need to have the right mindset.”
Mindset equals character.
» READ MORE: The Eagles’ lousy season has been full of what-ifs. Let’s answer some of them.
Character always has been the biggest issue with Carter.
Character was why Carter fell from top five to No. 9 in the 2023 draft. He was sentenced to 12 months of probation, a $1,000 fine and 80 hours of community service for his involvement in a fatal car crash after Georgia’s national championship parade. His college coaches were reluctant to endorse him to NFL scouts, because those coaches knew that endorsing a questionable player would haunt them if that player busted out of the league.
Character is why Carter keeps showing up like Retro Joel Embiid. According to Fangio — not according to anonymous sources, or according to our own eyeballs, but according to the DC — Carter was way out of shape to start the 2025 season, and was slightly out of shape to start the 2026 season. When you’re hoping to make $152 million, and after you’re making $152 million, here are the number of days you should be out of shape:
0.
Character is why Carter was suspended for a game last season when he spat on Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott before the first snap of the 2025 season.
Character is why Carter refused to play on an injured heel on the MetLife turf last October against the Giants. Sure, his teammates could play with their various maladies and boo-boos, but not Carter, who was angling to stay healthy for that lucrative extension the following summer.
It’s no secret that the Eagles entertained trade offers for Carter all spring before finally extending him in July, just before he would have likely held out of training camp. League sources now say they were worried that, once paid, Carter would cease to play hard.
Those worries clearly have manifested themselves.
Carter is the axis of the vortex of issues that have brought the Eagles to the fifth-worst record in football. The team has dealt with an injury epidemic, including blood clots that likely ended quarterback Jalen Hurts’ season. Underqualified first-time offensive coordinator Sean Mannion has no answers for an attack that stalled in 2025. Right tackle Lane Johnson, the team’s best player since 2013, retired after Game 3.
Still, effort is effort, and some Eagles clearly aren’t efforting.
The situation has Sirianni flummoxed, and, entertainingly, speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
“Do you bat 100% on effort? No, you don’t play a perfect football game. … Anytime there’s one that we feel like there was a loaf, we point that out and show that to the team,” Sirianni said Wednesday.
Good start.
Then this, from the other side of his mouth:
“I didn’t think that we had — I didn’t look at the tape and say, ‘Hey, this was an effort issue, and this is why this play happened or that play happened.’ ”
If that’s true, then Sirianni didn’t look at Carter not get into his three-point stance several times Monday. He didn’t look at Carter & Co. decline to engage on the clinching touchdown run.
Maybe Sirianni was giddy over getting 21 points of offense in the first 36 minutes and forgot to look at defensive tape at all.
Kelce made sure to point out that all is not lost. The Eagles might show some pride and respond to the criticism. The Giants lead the division at 4-2-1. The season isn’t over.
The Eagles play another division rival Sunday, the Washington Commanders, again in prime time. They laid down the last time they were in this position.
Kelce’s question: Will Carter & Co. lay down again?
How were we so wrong? Heading into the season, the Eagles’ defense was supposed to be their strength. After Monday’s throttling by the Cowboys, the group reached a new low, especially on the defensive line, where major offseason investments and commitments were made. Why has a unit that showed promise in training camp failed to live up to expectations? And how will the Eagles’ five-game losing streak influence the organization’s approach to the NFL’s impending trade deadline? The Inquirer’s Jeff McLane and David Murphy tackle these topics and more the day after the Eagles’ 38-21 defeat to Dallas. Listen here.
Listen to all episodes here or wherever you get your podcasts.
