Jordan Davis stood near the back of the media tent Wednesday afternoon with a slight smile on his face. Jalen Carter was sitting at the podium, answering questions a day after the Eagles made him the highest-paid interior defensive lineman in NFL history. Four months earlier, the roles were reversed.
Carter was inside the auditorium at the Jefferson Health Training Complex when the Eagles held a press conference a few days after signing Davis to a $78 million extension.
“He told me I was next up and I’m here right now,” Carter said.
The Eagles invested $230 million this offseason on the former Georgia teammates they drafted in the first round in consecutive seasons, Davis in 2022 and Carter in 2023. There probably was a stretch of time when the idea of both being here together until at least 2029 was wishful thinking. Davis didn’t shed his label as an out-of-shape first-round bust until his breakout 2025 season. And Carter, who was dominant during the Eagles’ Super Bowl run in 2024, took a step back in 2025 while being limited due to shoulder injuries.
But the Eagles, Howie Roseman said, wanted to make sure the interior defensive line continued to be a strength of their team. It’s a “deficient position,” Roseman said. “It’s hard to find guys like that.”
Linebacker Zack Baun and Roseman crossed paths Tuesday after the Eagles and Carter completed their deal. Baun, Roseman said, told the general manager that someone told him after he signed his $51 million deal with the Eagles that “you don’t pay me for what I did, you’re paying me for what I’m going to do.”
“That’s why we do these deals,” Roseman said Wednesday before the Eagles took the field for their first practice of training camp. “We don’t do anything based on retroactive performance, we’re doing things based on future performance.”
The Eagles aren’t concerned about Carter’s shoulders, which required injections so he could finish the 2025 season. While negotiations played out, Carter said he let his agent, Drew Rosenhaus, and his mother, Toni Brown, figure out the contract while he focused on his body. He worked closely with Julian Allen at Hybrid Performance in Turnersville to build his strength back. Nick Sirianni credited Carter for coming into camp in “phenomenal shape” while the contract situation loomed over his head in the offseason.
Roseman disagreed with a Sports Illustrated report that said the Eagles were hesitant to sign Carter when asked about it Wednesday. The Eagles normally like to re-sign players in March and April — Davis signed his deal in March — but called Carter’s situation “unique.” Roseman said the defensive tackle market was “in transition” during that timeline. Tennessee’s Jeffery Simmons helped reset the market, and Dexter Lawrence was extended by Cincinnati following his trade.
The Eagles’ actions show they feel Carter is better than both, and much closer to the player they watched in 2024 and not 2025, when his pressure rate dropped from 8.9% to 7.7%.
“This was a unique situation,” Roseman said. “By the same token, getting this done before camp was important for all of us. Good things happen when you get things off your plate and you’re able to focus on football.”
Carter’s tenure with the Eagles has not been without drama. He has been flagged for multiple personal fouls, including an ejection from last season’s opener after Carter was caught spitting at Dak Prescott before the first snap of the game. He has struggled with conditioning issues at times. He also entered the NFL after being booked on reckless driving and racing charges stemming from a 2023 incident that resulted in the deaths of a Georgia football player and staff member.
“Since Jalen’s been here, he’s put his head down, he’s worked hard, he’s made huge, impact plays for this organization, for this team,” Roseman said. “Like anyone, when you’re 25 years old you’re still growing as a person and a player.”
Carter called the contract “a reflection of the trust that the coaches, the players, the organization has in me. I’m very thankful for that.”
He said becoming the highest-paid defensive tackle wasn’t important to the process for him. It was important to stay with the Eagles, he said.
Carter listed some of the people in the building that helped him reach the new deal; among them was Davis, who hosted Carter on his visit to Georgia and has become “like an older brother to me,” Carter said.
Davis said “the sky is the limit” for Carter, and expressed pride in watching Carter grow as a player and person over the last few years.
“Coming into the league, it’s a learning process,” Davis said. “You have to learn how to be a professional. You have to learn how to navigate things, how to navigate problems that we didn’t have in college, that we didn’t have in high school.”
They have done it all together, a process that will continue for at least a few more years.
“It’s a blessing to work with him for a couple more years,” Carter said. “I’m just happy I can stay here and be with the guys that I grew up with.”
