Former Philadelphia Eagles star defensive end Chris Long is very fond of second-year defensive tackle Jalen Carter, so much so that he wishes he could suit up for the Birds one last time.
"When I watch him, he makes me want to put my pads on and join the team again so I can be like "Hey mother****, you can be the best EVER," Long recently said on his podcast. "You can be a guy talked about as one of the greatest Eagles D-Linemen of all time. He's that talented."
If there's anyone who knows a thing or two about being a great defender it's Long, who logged 70 sacks, won two Super Bowl rings, and was named the NFL's Walter Payton Man of the Year.
So a compliment coming from him speaks volumes.
Carter Plans to Take Year 2 to Another Level
Expectations were high for the University of Georgia product, who was drafted at No. 9 overall by the Eagles in the 2023 NFL Draft.
And it's safe to say he met them as he logged 33 total tackles, six sacks, and 47 QB pressures through 16 games for the Eagles in his first NFL season.
Carter only plans to get better in Year 2.
“My first year was OK,” Carter told reporters during OTAs. “It wasn’t how I wanted it to end. A lot of stuff that I seen on film is stuff I need to fix. It’s OK. We here now and I’m ready to be better than last year.”
By doing so, he has been working less on the playbook and more on getting stronger and faster.
“It’s been a lot on conditioning,” Carter said. “Really, I’d like to be more conditioned than working on technique because we got all year for technique stuff. We work on technique everyday in practice with our hands, working on pass rushes and stuff like that. But you really don’t work on conditioning a lot. But I did more conditioning than I did hand movement and some of the stuff like that.”
