Jalen Carter is a problem for opposing offenses and they have taken notice.
Back in early November, as Carter began to get double-teamed more and more, defensive coordinator Vic Fangio was asked about one of the most important elements for a player dealing with all this extra attention.
“You just can't get frustrated,” Fangio said. “You've got to keep playing. A lot of your guys with their dominant players, they get double-teamed a lot but they still seem to get their production. So, they keep going and they don't get frustrated.”
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Carter, 23, is doing a good job of that.
Despite all that attention, Carter is still playing like an All-Pro defensive tackle. Through 13 games, Carter has 4 1/2 sacks, 37 tackles, 12 TFLs, 15 quarterback hits and 4 batted passes. And he’s doing this damage while fighting through double teams.
“I’m used to it,” Carter said. “It’s been happening since the beginning of the season. I just gotta work through it. Keep rushing, keep seeing what I’m seeing and taking it to the next level.”
While Carter has played well all season, he has really turned it up over the last month and a half or so. And in 2024, Carter actually leads the Eagles in total pressures with 38, according to NFL NextGen Stats.
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And he’s been learning how to fight through these doubles. There’s a way to do it.
“Yeah, it is,” Carter said. “I don’t want to say that with these cameras right here. Because how I study their O-line, they study our D-line or whoever they going against. But, yeah, there’s ways to beat it and the only way to show that is by beating it and getting a sack off of it or something like that.”
The beautiful thing is that when Carter gets doubled, it means that one of his teammates gets freed up for some 1-on-1s. And Milton Williams takes it as a sign of disrespect when that happens.
Williams this season has a team-high pressure rate of 14.4% and already has a career-high 5 sacks, which ranks second on the team behind just edge rusher Josh Sweat.
Carter said he and Williams joke around about the dynamic between the two of them and how Williams ends up with those double teams. But Carter is always quick to credit Williams when he does something to free him up.
And there’s no doubt that Carter has loved to watch Williams take advantage of those 1-on-1s.
“That boy balling,” Carter said. “Y’all see he turn it up every week. Teams are starting to notice. He’s starting to get the slide a little bit more. He’s just working hard every day. You see it throughout practice and it’s showing up in the games.”
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