Jalen Carter takes responsibility for Monday’s benching: ‘It won’t happen again’
Carter did not play on the first defensive series of the game after being late to a meeting earlier in the week.
Speaking for the first time since being held out of the opening series of the Eagles’ game against the Falcons for disciplinary reasons, Eagles defensive tackle Jalen Carter took responsibility Friday.
The second-year interior lineman said he slept through his morning alarm and missed the beginning of a team meeting as a result, leading to the team benching him for the first series of the Monday night matchup against Atlanta as first reported by the Inquirer’s Jeff McLane.
“It was a decision that the coaches made,” Carter said. “I’ve got to respect the decision, I came in late and I have to take full responsibility for that. It happened, it won’t happen again.”
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Carter said he was surprised when he learned he wouldn’t be starting as a result of showing up late, but accepted it. The 2023 first-round pick out of Georgia also said it didn’t affect his performance in the game.
“I was shocked, but I knew it was going to have some consequences,” Carter said. “I’ve got to stand up, man up right there.”
When asked what lesson he took away from last week, Carter said, “don’t be late.”
During his news conference Thursday, Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio said Carter has generally handled his responsibilities behind the scenes well but acknowledged there’s still room for improvement.
“He had the hiccups last week during the week which caused that,” Fangio said on Carter’s discipline. “ … But like a lot of us, starting with the coaches, he can do better.”
Carter has gotten off to a slow start to his second season. The 23-year-old had six sacks as a rookie and put together an encouraging enough training camp to suggest he could be in for a dominant year, but he’s yet to register a sack or a tackle for loss through two games. He’s got four total tackles and just one quarterback hit while playing 76% of the Eagles’ defensive snaps.
The Eagles pass rush as a whole has struggled in the first two weeks of the season. The group’s lack of sack production could be partly explained away by slick field conditions against the Green Bay Packers in São Paulo, Brazil, but the lack of rush was glaring against the Falcons this past Monday.
According to Pro Football Focus, Carter’s six total pressures rank second on the team behind only Eagles edge rusher Josh Sweat. He drew a tough matchup against Falcons guard Chris Lindstrom last Monday and struggled at times, especially in the run game, but still flashed on occasion despite the lack of end product.
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When asked Friday for his assessment of his play through the first two games, Cater didn’t pull punches.
“Me, being real to myself, trash,” Carter said. “I feel like I can be way better. A lot of stuff I can work on with hands, being able to read the formation of the O-line, read run and pass, literally everything.”
“That’s just how I talk to myself,” Carter said, “It don’t bring me down, you see the stuff in the media that’s getting talked about a lot that I see, but it don’t bring me down. I keep it real with myself. I’ve been like this since I was in college. … I don’t want to say I’m doing good when you see on film that it’s not up to the standard.”
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