Jalen Hurts’ wife put a five-dollar bill in his backpack when the Eagles’ quarterback reported for training camp Tuesday.
We don’t know why – after the first workout of camp Wednesday, Hurts told reporters it was “an inside joke.” Hurts brought it up because he said he’d arrived at the team facility Tuesday, and he’d learned defensive tackle Jalen Carter had agreed to a reported four-year, $152 million contract extension, with $106 million in guarantees.
“I smacked it on his chest and said, ‘Let me put a five on top of that,’” Hurts said. “He’s a great competitor, great player. He was disrupting practice out there today. I’m just excited for him to be able to focus on what’s to come.”
That was the importance of general manager Howie Roseman getting Carter’s deal done before Wednesday’s first workout. Players don’t really hold out of training camp anymore, there are stiff fines for that. They do hold in, showing up but watching from the sidelines as their teammates work. That was the case Wednesday with Atlanta running back Bijan Robinson and Detroit running back Jahmyr Gibbs.
The Eagles, trying to get out of the gate fresh and rested after a too-long offseason, didn’t need any of that. Carter, coming off a frustrating year marred by shoulder injuries, didn’t need any of that.
It would have been less of a gamble to wait to see Carter dominating through camp and into his fourth NFL season, before making him the highest-paid defensive tackle in NFL history, and effectively closing the door on a Moro Ojomo extension, given the Eagles’ investment in their starting d-tackles.
But Carter and agent Drew Rosenhaus obviously wanted this done before Carter started exposing himself to injury again, and Roseman has recently adopted a policy of not doing contracts during the season, so, this was the time.
“Good things happen when you get things off your plate and you’re able to focus on football,” Roseman said Wednesday.
Everything Roseman, Carter, Eagles coach Nick Sirianni and Carter’s teammates said Wednesday was reassuring, not that those words are going to mean much when the season starts.
“You guys don’t understand how scary he can be,” running back Saquon Barkley said.
Carter was asked if the last few months had been difficult, not knowing if the deal was going to happen. He said he left those concerns to Rosenhaus.
“The last few months, I’ve just been workin’,” he said.
Was it important to him to become the highest-paid NFL defensive tackle?
“It was important for me to stay here, with the guys that I know and have been playing with for the last three years,” Carter said. “I don’t really think the money is ever going to change me. When you get picked in the first round, (ninth overall), you kind of get a little bit of decent money, and that didn’t change me.”
Carter’s initial deal was for $21.8 million. This would be just a bit more than that. Carter definitely seems to understand value, though – he mentioned that if Hurts had bothered to sign the gifted five-dollar bill, it would have been worth a lot more.
Asked about a report that the deal might have been delayed over uncertainty about Carter’s maturity and focus, Roseman denied that was the case – as you might expect a GM to do, after guaranteeing a player $106 million. You’re just not ever going to hear, “Yeah, there are still questions, he kind of set the tone for our season last year when he spat on Dak Prescott and got ejected from the opener, but you either do the deal now or you move on, and he’s too talented, too hard to replace for us to do that.”
Instead, there was this: “We were trying to figure out the market,” Roseman said. “He was trying to figure out the market.”
Roseman lauded Carter for trying to fight through the shoulder injuries. He also made it clear that expectations going forward are not for Carter to be the sometimes-dominant, sometimes-not player he has been in the past, whatever the cause.
“Like anyone, when you’re 25 years old, you’re still growing, as a person and as a player,” Roseman said. “I saw Zack Baun yesterday. He made a great comment – he said to me, ‘When I signed my contract, someone told me, you don’t pay me for what I did, you pay me for what I’m going to do.’ ”
Sirianni said: “I’ve really enjoyed getting to know Jalen more and more each year … He’s put his head down and he’s worked, to make impactful plays, and we look for that to continue. … He came back in phenomenal shape, with his weight, with his conditioning test. Even with his contract still looming, he worked his ass of. And I’m proud of him for that.”
The other starting defensive tackle, Jordan Davis, was Carter’s teammate at Georgia, and they’ve been together as Eagles since Carter arrived in 2023. In March, Carter showed up to support Davis when his three-year, $78 million contract extension was announced. On Wednesday, Davis returned the favor.
“Coming into the league, it’s a learning process,” Davis said, when asked about Carter’s development. “You have to learn how to be a professional, you have to learn how to navigate things that we didn’t have in college, we didn’t have in high school … Seeing him with all the off-the-field things, seeing him persevere through everything he’s been through, I think that’s the biggest thing … I’m very proud of him.”
