Jalen Carter spat on Dak Prescott. Selfish. Stupid. The Eagles should suspend him.

It can be argued that third-year defensive tackle Jalen Carter is the most important player on the roster for the Philadelphia Eagles.

It cannot be argued that Carter, on Thursday, was the dumbest of all Eagles. Maybe the dumbest ever.

After the opening kickoff, Carter and Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott exchanged words across what would be the line of scrimmage. Carter’s teammate, Ben VanSumeren, sat on the turf, some 30 yards away, contemplating what likely is a season-ending knee injury suffered covering the opening kickoff.

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The discussion between Carter and Prescott seemed benign. A few words. Carter stepped 3 yards over the line of scrimmage and approached the Cowboys’ huddle and began taunting rookie lineman Tyler Booker, according to Prescott. Prescott stepped toward Carter. He appeared to spit on the ground, innocuously.

And then:

Hawk. Tuah.

Carter spat a small, white loogie not only at Prescott, but right down the “V” under Prescott’s chin, right onto his bare chest. He did this as umpire Bryan Neale walked up to the pair and witnessed it from 10 feet away.

Moments later, Carter was ejected.

It was the most significant incidence of spitting since Keith Hernandez was falsely accused on Seinfeld. On Thursday night, Carter was the second spitter.

“I probably spit a thousand times a day,” Prescott explained. “He was trolling … trying to mess with Tyler Booker. “I just spit ahead. He goes, ‘You trying to spit on me?’ I was like, ‘What would I need to spit on you for?’ And he just spit on me at that moment.”

The ejection mattered.

“Changed our scheme,” Prescott admitted.

With Carter absent, the Cowboys scored on all four of their first-half drives. Instead of Carter wreaking havoc against Booker, Prescott was barely touched.

It was a moment not only of supreme idiocy, but of supreme selfishness. A moment in which Carter’s ego outweighed his duty to the team with which he plays and his duty to the fans who pay his salary. It doesn’t matter if Prescott spat first. Carter cannot help being provoked. He’s an easy mark.

This is not unprecedented. Carter clearly has a problem with self-control.

“It won’t happen again,” Carter said. “I made that promise.”

The evidence contradicts that promise.

Carter’s three unnecessary roughness penalties last season tied for the most in the league. His seven total penalties last season tied for third-most among defensive linemen.

“Anything that I feel like I’ve done something bad, it’s provoked,” Carter said.

Easy mark.

The defensive tackle slapped the helmet of Pittsburgh Steelers tight end Connor Heyward during a punt return last season, drew a penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct, and drew the ire of coach Nick Sirianni on the sideline, who had to be restrained by gigantic defensive line coach Clint Hurtt.

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Late in a win at New Orleans, Carter taunted Saints players and fans from the sideline and had to be restrained by Hurtt and Sirianni.

Carter was flagged for unnecessary roughness in Week 16 last season, a 36-33 loss at Washington.

Carter also was benched for the first series of a game last season against the Atlanta Falcons because he was late to a team meeting during the week. The Eagles lost that game by one point, and he played poorly. At least he played.

That should not be the case 10 days hence, in Kansas City.

The NFL should suspend Carter at least one game. He has repeatedly proven himself egregiously unsportsmanlike. If the NFL won’t do it, the Eagles should. Conduct detrimental to the team for extreme and repeated unsportsmanlike actions.

Yes, they’ve built their defense around him and even voted him a captain.

A captain needs to live up to expectations, not expectorations.

He’s been fined four times in two seasons for more than $57,000, twice for fighting, both times against the Commanders. You can’t make it up.

So, suspend him. Make it cost him a game check, about $58,000 before taxes.

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The NFL spent the offseason planning a crackdown on unsportsmanlike play. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones sits on the competition committee. The gross act, in high-def slo-mo, flooded social media, the marquee play of the league’s 2025 debut. It is the sort of thing that enrages those Manhattan folks at 345 Park Ave.

Carter knows a suspension is a possibility:

“If I get that text or that call about that conversation, then we’ll have it then,” he said.

Sirianni implied that Carter will face some measure of discipline — “We’ll keep those in-house” — but Sirianni would not specify the measures he and general manager Howie Roseman plan to take or how they plan to make Carter stop committing dumb penalties.

“You see how I coach with emotion, and I want them to play with emotion,” Sirianni said, “but you have to do it within the rules of the game.”

Said fellow captain Reed Blankenship: “It’s something we’ll talk about. But you can’t hold people back like that. It’s an emotional game. I know he’s gonna do what’s right next time. I have complete faith.”

We’ve heard this all before. Drastic measures are needed. Maybe a suspension will send a message to the team because this is not an isolated incident among this group of Eagles.

In that game against the Commanders last season, safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson was ejected for taunting, and the Commanders roared back to win in his absence.

Thursday night, after Carter’s ejection, Eagles defensive end and Carter’s former Georgia teammate Nolan Smith stopped Cowboys running back Miles Sanders for no gain. However, Smith then stood over Sanders and taunted him, drawing a 15-yard penalty that helped the Cowboys convert a field goal.

Sirianni’s sideline and postgame antics have set a poor example in his four-plus seasons as the Eagles’ coach. He has come unhinged at players (ask Haason Reddick) and officials. Sirianni has taunted fans on the road and, incredibly, at home. The coach reformed himself after one particularly bizarre instance during Week 6 of the 2024 season, but precedent was set.

Not surprisingly, several players have followed Sirianni’s poor example. But no Eagle has been as wild as Carter, who seems content to continue the traditions of Ndamukong Suh and Cortland Finnegan.

It is a pattern of behavior by Carter against which the Eagles were warned.

» READ MORE: Eagles’ Jalen Carter has much at stake this season: ‘God put him on this earth to be a mean football player’

After a party celebrating Georgia’s consecutive national championships, on Jan. 15, 2023, Carter was racing another car driven by a Georgia football recruiting staffer when the other car flew off the road and crashed into utility poles and trees, killing the staffer and a passenger, one of Carter’s teammates. Victoria Bowles, a third occupant of the wrecked car and also a recruiting staffer, sued the university and settled, but she later updated her $5 million lawsuit against Carter.

In March 2023, Carter pleaded no contest to misdemeanor charges of reckless driving and racing. He received 12 months of probation, a $1,000 fine, 80 hours of community service, and had to take a defensive driving course.

He also received a major black eye.

The accident further tainted Carter’s reputation as an uncontrollable, unmotivated player with massive talent but little discipline. Generally considered the top talent in the 2023 draft, Carter saw his stock fall after the accident, and the Eagles were able to take him ninth overall, the fourth defensive player selected.

Carter generally has exercised more restraint, and he has applied himself in the classroom and the weight room. He earned a Pro Bowl nod and was the anchor of the No. 1 defense in the NFL last season as the Eagles won their second Super Bowl.

Nevertheless, now in his third season in the NFL, Carter’s profile remains the same.

Thursday night did nothing to improve it.