Eagles defensive tackle Jalen Carter has made a big impact in his first two NFL seasons, but defensive coordinator Vic Fangio thinks there’s plenty of upside left for the 2023 first-round pick.
Carter was a second-team All-Pro after recording 42 tackles, 12 tackles for loss, 4.5 sacks, and two forced fumbles during the regular season and he had two more sacks and a forced fumble in the team’s playoff win over the Rams. During a press conference this week, Fangio was asked his thoughts about what the future holds for Carter.
“The good news about Jalen is twofold,” Fangio said, via a transcript from the team. “One, he played very well for us last year, and two, he can still improve a lot.”
Carter isn’t arguing with that assessment. Carter mentioned Chris Jones and Dexter Lawrence while discussing the best defensive tackles in the league and said his goal is to reach that level as well.
“This is what I wanted to do,” Carter said, via Dave Zangaro of NBCSportsPhiladelphia.com. “I wanted to be the best at what I do, try to be the best. I’m not there yet. I still got a lot of people in front of me that’s obviously been in the league a couple \[more\] years, got years of experience on me. But I’m just going to keep grinding every day. Not just me by myself working on specific things to get better, just being around the team having the guys support me also makes me also be one of the best in the league.”
Repeating as Super Bowl champions is difficult, but it’ll be a little easier if Carter can continue ascending as rapidly as he has the last two years.
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