Jalen Carter is a great prospect who made a terrible mistake. The Eagles had better be right about his character.

Their track record in bringing in players with spotty or dark pasts is good. But good isn't perfect, and Carter's involvement in a fatal car crash should give the team and everyone else pause.

Georgia defensive lineman Jalen Carter was the Eagles top pick at No. 9. He arrives with talent and a past to overcome.Read moreCharlie Riedel / AP

by Mike Sielski | Columnist

Published Apr. 27, 2023, 11:47 p.m. ET

What the Eagles did Thursday night, in trading up to take Georgia defensive tackle Jalen Carter with the No. 9 pick in the NFL draft, was simple: They put themselves, their organization, and its human infrastructure on notice.

There are precious few doubts about the quality of player Carter can be. Over the weeks and months ahead of the first round, he was referred to, routinely, as the best overall prospect in this draft: 6 feet, 3 inches, and 300 pounds of power and quickness and disruption. But there was a reason that none of the first nine teams that had the chance to pick Carter were willing to. There’s a reason the Bears were amenable to trading back. There’s a reason Carter was still on the board. It is the worst kind of reason.

On March 1, Carter was charged with two misdemeanors related to a car crash that occurred in January after Georgia’s victory over TCU in the national championship game. Two people died in the crash: Chandler LeCroy, a Georgia football recruiting staffer, and Devin Willock, an offensive lineman on the team.

On March 15, with his legal fate still unresolved, Carter showed up at his pro day nine pounds overweight, then cramped up and wheezed so badly that he failed to finish his position drills. “It was just me,” he said Thursday night. “I felt conditioned, but I guess I wasn’t.” The next day, he pleaded no contest to racing and reckless driving. He was given 12 months’ probation, fined $1,000, ordered to perform 80 hours of community service and complete a state-approved driving course.

If ever there were a time when a young athlete could not afford to jeopardize his future, that was the time for Carter. He was on track to be a top-five pick in the draft, maybe the first pick, and the fact that he could be so careless when he stood to gain so much compels the asking of a vital question: How much good sense does this kid have? Yet these are the sort of circumstances and details, and this is the sort of tragedy often easily glossed over amid the Academy Awards-like pomp and primping that now flavors the first night of the draft, with all the analysis about how well each player fits into a new scheme and system, with all the hope from fans that their favorite team has found a savior. Thursday was just the latest example of that convenient casting aside of inconvenient facts.

Moments after the Eagles selected Carter, an on-camera representative of the NFL Network asked him about “everything [he] had been through,” and Carter, searching for his words, said: “They’re getting the best person in the draft.” It was an unfortunate thing for a clearly nervous kid to say. He likely meant player, not person. But the error only highlighted the risk that the Eagles had accepted by accepting him into their fold.

In fairness, their track record here has been very good compared to the rest of the NFL. They have brought in players with spotty and suspect pasts before and, in general, have avoided further problems; Michael Vick is the most memorable and obvious example.

“We take that part seriously,” Howie Roseman, the team’s executive vice president, said early Friday morning.

Either the Eagles are learning enough about these players to feel comfortable taking chances on them, and/or the culture and programs that they have established help keep those players out of trouble. Dom DiSandro, their head of security, has long been an asset in this regard. “With his work,” Roseman said, “we think he’s the best in the league.”

A very good track record, however, is not the same as a perfect track record, and it’s worth noting that, in this situation, the Eagles stuck to the common calculus of professional football: They chose to pursue and acquire a remarkably talented athlete, an athlete with clear and serious character concerns, and, in the end, they put Carter’s talent first.

“We just wanted the player,” Roseman said.

In fact, when the Eagles met with Carter before the draft, “they really didn’t ask much about that accident that happened,” Carter said. “It was getting to know me and my love of the game.”

It is fair to say that Carter should get a second chance in his football career, that he deserves the opportunity to learn from his horrible mistake, that he might yet be a model citizen and wonderful defensive tackle during his time here. But it’s just as fair to hold him and the franchise to a high standard for his actions from here on out, to insist that Carter proves every day that he no longer is the same kid who exercised such awful judgment for such awful consequences on that January night. The Eagles had better be right about Jalen Carter. More than with most draft picks, more than with just about any other player they have selected before or could have selected Thursday, the Eagles had better be right.