July 29, 2026
Eric Hartline/IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
The Eagles saw Jalen Carter as a clear part of their team for the long haul.
Right now, at his best, Jalen Carter is a game-wrecker.
When the ball gets snapped, the defensive tackle is immediately up and barreling through the opposing offensive line in a way so disruptive that it often leaves the other team with just two choices: Either double him up and try to get away with holding him, or hope their quarterback gets the ball away quick enough before taking the punishment.
In 2024, Carter was consistently that kind of a force within the trenches, looking like a future defensive player of the year, which helped the Eagles on their way to the Super Bowl.
In 2025, Carter was only able to reach that level in spurts, getting held back by shoulder issues that he kept trying to battle through.
The Eagles, though, very much believe he'll be back to being that game-wrecker for the foreseeable future, and then some.
On Tuesday, Carter agreed to a four-year, $152 million contract extension with the Eagles, which will keep him in Philadelphia through 2031. And at an average annual value of about $38 million per season, the new contract also makes Carter the newest highest-paid defensive tackle in NFL history, surpassing the Tennessee Titans' Jeffery Simmons, who signed his three-year, $105.8 million deal back in June.
On Wednesday, ahead of training camp's first practice at the renamed Jefferson Health Training Complex, Eagles general manager Howie Roseman and head coach Nick Sirianni talked about the path to getting to Carter's new contract.
The 25-year-old earned it, first of all. But just as much, the deal is about what he will do, not what he's already done.
"Since Jalen's been here, he's put his head down," Roseman said. "He's worked hard. He's made huge impact plays for this organization, and for this team. Last year, he wasn't 100 percent. He tried to fight through that and play through that. We understand that. Like anyone, when you're 25 years old, you're still growing as a person and as a player. You know, I saw Zack Baun yesterday, and he made a great comment. He said to me, 'When I sign my contract, someone told me: You don't pay me for what I did, you're paying for me for what I'm gonna do.' That's why we do these deals."
And so far, so good for the Eagles in getting them done.
The Eagles just ensured that Jalen Carter will be other offenses' problem through 2031.
Gregory Fisher/IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
Baun got re-signed to a three-year contract last spring, after he was brought in as linebacking depth ahead of the 2024 season, but instead broke out as a defensive star for the Super Bowl run that the Eagles just couldn't let walk away. He now leads what is easily the best linebacking room that the Eagles have had in years, decades even.
Big Jordan Davis took a while before he figured out how to consistently make an impact as a nose tackle, but it fully clicked for him last season when he turned in a career year, which gave the Eagles the OK to hand him his own three-year extension this past March to keep him around – both as a value on the field and in the locker room.
Ideally, Roseman said he would've preferred to get Carter's deal done in March, too, but uncertainty in the market for defensive tackles at the time, which hung on how much Simmons in Tennessee and then Dexter Lawrence in Cincinnati were going to sign for, put a hold on that.
Still, the plan was always to get Carter a long-term extension, and even though it's a record deal now, if the former first-round pick keeps trending upward as he enters the prime of his career, that money could easily end up as one of the best bargains in the entire league.
"We understood it was unique because of where the market was and where he thought and [Carter's agent Drew Rosenhaus] thought it was going," Roseman said. "But it was always positive, and we were always trying to get him extended."
Added Sirianni: "To be able to have him and have him locked up, and we know what that creates for the opposing offense. I know, as a former offensive coordinator, the problems that a player at that position with that talent creates, and the things that you have to do for him gameplan-wise. Anytime you're just excited that that portion's out of the way, and you're able to go and focus completely on football, which he has, [and] which I give him a lot of credit.
"He's focused so much on football," Sirianni continued about Carter. "He came back in phenomenal shape with his weight, with his conditioning test. So even with that contract still looming, he worked his ass off, and I'm proud of him for that. That shows you the type of guy he is, and he'll continue to be."
A guy who can be a complete game-wrecker on the defensive side of the trenches, and then some.
And a guy who – alongside Baun, Davis, and even young star cornerbacks Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean when their time comes – was fully worth it for the Eagles to get ahead of and make sure he'd be around, as part of a homegrown defensive core, for the long haul.
"We've drafted players, we've resigned our players, and when you talk about culture, that's the first thing that comes to mind with culture: 'If I do well, I'm gonna get rewarded. I don't have to go somewhere else to do that,'" Roseman said of the Eagles' overall team-building philosophy. "So that's really a huge part of what we're trying to build.
"We're proud about that, and that's gonna be our first priority as opposed to getting to March and trying to go outside the building."
"You're gonna have to make sacrifices," Roseman continued. "You saw it in the offseason. We let players go that we care about, that we think are good players, that we think are really good people that fit, but we had to move on because we have some game-changing players and people that are part of this organization, and who we don't intend to lose. So I would say to our fans, if you're wearing a jersey with some of those guys with those names on the back, we fully intend for those guys to be here on the long term."
Count those Carter No. 98 jerseys among them.
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