Jalen Carter’s stat line from the Eagles’ 28-23 win over the Jaguars won’t blow you away.
The former first-round pick had one solo tackles and three assists.
But there was no doubt that Carter was extremely disruptive, often battling through double teams, in the Eagles’ win.
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“I thought he played very well,” said defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, who isn’t ever eager to dole out unearned praise. “I thought he had — I mean, I don't know that I can say his best game overall but if not his best, then it’s up there.”
If you dig a little deeper into Carter’s game, you’ll see that he had a career-high 6 pressures on 33 pass rushes and a career-high 3 pressures against double teams.
Being the centerpiece of the Eagles’ defensive line, Carter is going to have to deal with a ton of double teams the rest of the season. So far, so good.
“Yeah, he can't get frustrated,” Fangio said. “A lot of times, the double teams are just a result of the scheme that the offense is running. It's not so much that it's tailor-made to an individual.
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“But you just can't get frustrated. 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.”
These double teams aren’t a surprise to Carter. Before the season began in São Paulo, he talked about the pressure on him in his second NFL year, especially after the retirement of Fletcher Cox.
Carter, 23, knew extra attention was going to come his way.
“I’ve been having that since I was little,” Carter said in early September. “I had it at Georgia after Jordan Davis and Travon Walker and them guys left. I feel like it’s about to come up now. It’s just something I have to work on, second-effort rush. Just getting to the quarterback and finishing.”
Aside from his pressure numbers against the Jaguars, the most impressive thing about Carter’s performance was he left the field just twice on 54 defensive snaps. While his 52 snaps weren’t a career high, his 96.3% of the Eagles’ defensive snaps was.
In fact, that’s the highest percentage of defensive snaps for an Eagles defensive tackle since Stathead began tracking snaps in 2012. So that means those numbers include the entirety of Cox’s career. Cox’s previous top mark was 94.3% against the Commanders in 2019.
Before Carter entered the NFL, Cox held the top 13 spots for highest snap percentage in a single game by an Eagles defensive tackle since 2012. Carter now owns the top spot and the No. 9 spot on that list.
“The way the game went, we had a fair amount of three-and-outs,” Fangio said. “So, it is more possible and easier for a defensive lineman to play a good bit of the game. If you're getting a bunch of seven-, eight-, nine-play series, then it's harder.”
Through eight games this season, Carter has played 385 snaps (79%). In 16 games last year, he played 563 (51%) as a rookie.
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