The Eagles knew selecting Carter out of Georgia came with risk, but they also believed he could be a generational talent.
, two of whom would be in the position room with him daily. They also believed he'd benefit from being reunited with Dean and Davis, who vouched for Carter during the lead-up to the draft. "All of us when we were 21 and 22, hopefully have grown a lot from that time, and you just really want to get to know the person and what's in their heart," Roseman said on draft night.
"I think when we got to know Jalen, we just felt like here's a kid that he does love football. Obviously, he's a winner. He won in high school, he won in college. "We feel like we have really good people in this building. We have really good support staff. We have really good players who are good people. We have really good coaches. We felt like it was a good fit for us." Jalen Carter, pictured during a preseason game against the Cleveland Browns, has been under the tutelage of several veteran Eagles players. standout from the minute he entered Apopka High School in 2016, a football powerhouse outside Orlando, Florida, that has produced players such as Warren Sapp andIt wasn't just Carter's size -- 6-foot-3 and 270 pounds as a freshman -- but the way he could move. Like when he , or made an Odell Beckham-like one-handed grab in the corner of the end zone during a 7-on-7 football game."He was just crushing people, taking people off the field to the track-type deal," said Hunter Wood, a trainer and former Apopka strength coach. Carter moved to the defensive side of the ball for his senior year in 2019. Apopka coach Jeff Rolson remembers a spring game against a Jacksonville team that year in which Carter routinely pierced into the backfield. The coach said he had never seen an interior defensive lineman take over like that. In practice, Rolson had to ask Carter to ease off the gas pedal so the offense had a chance to execute a play. Rolson described Carter as a"self-contained, small-circle guy" with a"big heart" who met every expectation, while echoing a couple of his current teammates: Carter is not someone who trusts easily. "With scouts, with potential teams that were drafting him, I just said, 'You've got to build a relationship with Jalen.' Because he's not going to just jump on board -- 'Hey, whatever you say' -- you've got to get to know him a little bit and he's got to understand where you're coming from," Rolson said."I think once that happens, he's a guy you can count on." Carter's top-level play continued at Georgia. He was a unanimous All-American and named first-team All-SEC in 2022 while helping the Bulldogs to their second straight national championship. He posted 3 sacks, 7 tackles for loss and a pair of forced fumbles last season. He grew a reputation of being a bright-lights player, able to turn up the intensity and performance on game day with spectacular results, while also helping teammates. When he learned walk-ons didn't get free meals, he used his scholarship money to buy daily lunches for walk-on lineman Weston Wallace. His practice habits weren't as universally admired. Some Georgia coaches, according to sources familiar with the pre-draft process, relayed that Carter didn't always go hard, had an abrasive demeanor at times and often played by his own set of rules -- behavior that went largely unchecked in the new college world of the transfer portal and NIL, where opportunities abound for star players elsewhere if they become unhappy., Carter's former Georgia-turned-Eagles teammate, remained steadfast in his support leading up to the draft. "I know [Jalen] is just one of those guys that you can really count on to not only do his job, but he's going to do his job plus more and then come dap you up and get everybody hyped up." Georgia's Jalen Carter and Nolan Smith were drafted ninth and 30th overall, respectively, in the 2023 NFL draft. through their investigative work that Carter was likely to be named as a defendant in multiple civil suits stemming from the January crash in Athens, a source familiar with the team's pre-draft vetting said. In May, Willock's father filed a suit against the University of Georgia Athletic Association and named Carter as a defendant., accusing him of illegally leaving the scene without speaking to law enforcement and failing to render aid., stemming from a prior speeding ticket in Lake County, Florida, that had not been resolved. Carter was not charged with driving with a suspended license and cannot retroactively be charged now that the case is closed, Carter's attorney Kim Stephens said. According to Athens Solicitor General Will Fleenor, officials ran Carter's license through a national database in March when the file against him was opened, but it did not show his license was suspended in Florida, likely because the issue had been resolved by then. His license was reinstated Jan. 26 -- 11 days after the incident -- following payment of $150.50, according to documents reviewed by ESPN. The database did show his driving privileges in Georgia were suspended effective Feb. 10 -- nearly a month after the incident -- as a result of a separate driving infraction, Fleenor said. The off-field issues affected Carter's pre-draft prep. He left the scouting combine March 1 to return to Athens to face the misdemeanor charges. Georgia's pro day was two weeks later. Carter arrived nine pounds heavier than at the combine and was unable to finish his position drills. Some within the Eagles organization didn't think it was as bad as it looked -- he was going through drills and trying to keep pace with Smith, an outside linebacker who weighs about 75 pounds less than Carter -- but it was clear he needed to get into better shape. "I felt conditioned, but I guess I wasn't, and that was just me," Carter said the night of the draft."I should have conditioned a little bit more or a lot more before the pro day." During the period between organized team activities and training camp, Carter returned to Florida and enlisted Wood's help. "I didn't talk to him about the pro day stuff," Wood said."I kind of went blank slate with him, talked about what he wanted to accomplish on the year, talked about his goals and kind of expressed to him, 'This is what I think it's going to take to do this. Our goal is for you to be in the best shape possible when you show up to camp,' and to me, he was locked in. "Somehow or another he developed a chip on his shoulder about things he wanted to get done this year." What started as drips of that all-world ability at the beginning of camp turned into more of a steady stream. On his first NFL snap in Philadelphia's preseason opener against the
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