Jalen Carter knew what his first couple of weeks looked like.
"Me being real to myself? Trash," the second-year Eagles defensive tackle said of his performance after practice this past Friday.
It was a harsh assessment, but not like he was coming completely out of nowhere with it either.
In the Eagles' Week 1 win over Green Bay down in Brazil, Carter registered a QB hit but was only credited with three assisted tackles while playing 76 percent of the defensive snaps. In the Week 2 loss to Atlanta back home in Philly, he was sat down for the first defensive series as discipline for being late to a team meeting earlier in the week, then got rendered completely quiet by Pro Bowl guard Chris Lindstrom and the Falcons, getting held to just one assisted tackle and next to no sustained QB pressure on Kirk Cousins while still playing a majority of the snaps.
For a ninth-overall draft pick who showed constantly last season that he can be a terror in the trenches, the early setbacks were startling, for him and the whole defensive line.
But Carter knew exactly what it looked like, and knew he could be better.
"I feel like I can be way better," Carter said Friday from his locker at the NovaCare Complex. "I got a lot of stuff I can work on, with hands and being able to read the formation of the O-line, read running, passing, literally everything."
He adjusted quick.
In Sunday's 15-12 Eagles win over the Saints down in New Orleans, Carter was immediately in quarterback Derek Carr's face from the jump. He frequently put his blocking assignments – mainly Saints guard Cesar Ruiz – in a blender to get into the backfield and force Carr into quick decisions, and got his hands in the way to bat down two passes at the line in key third-down situations to keep the game in a 3-0 lock through the first half.
Carter played in 89 percent of the snaps, had three solo tackles, four combined, and two for a loss, and was a big reason why the defense looked much, much better on Sunday, which ultimately held the Saints to just 89 yards on the ground and only 130 yards through the air.
The 23-year old left field as the highest-graded Eagle for the game, per Pro Football Focus (93.5), and let the Saints and their faithful know about it on the way out of the Superdome.
Carter knew what his first couple of weeks looked like. But what about now?
"Trash," Carter said postgame. "I still don't like how I played, but I know that we played good as a team today. I'm happy for that. I think we got some boost in the locker room right now and we just got to move on to the next week and get another dub."
Still harsh, but going back to Friday after practice, Carter said the standard is high. He doesn't let the weight of it bear him down, but he won't deviate from it either.
"I keep real with myself," Carter said back at NovaCare. "I've been like this since I was in college...I don't want to say I'm doing good when I see on film that it's not up to the standard."
So what will it take to meet it?
"I don't know, I gotta be like Khalil Mack, get like six sacks in one game," Carter joked after the Saints game. "I don't know, man. I love sacks. I know that's big. I love tackling, I love everything, but...I don't know, just getting it done as a team makes me happy, but I still gotta see more out of myself."
Hopefully, Sunday was just the kind of spark he needed. The strength of the Eagles' D-line is going to heavily depend on him the rest of the way.
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