This started as a full Eagles reaction post, but let’s just focus on the real story of last night, Jalen Carter. In the most bizarre start to a season possible, Carter got himself ejected before a single play by literally spitting on Cowboys QB Dak Prescott. Our initial reaction was disbelief that our golden child would do something so ridiculous, childish, and stupid UNPROVOKED. Turns out that’s not what happened, but Carter still got himself ejected regardless.
The range of emotion that came with the immediate aftermath and subsequent information drop (THERE WAS A SECOND SPITTER!!!) of the Jalen Carter ejection was a new one for me, but not for so many parents out there, mine included. My first reaction was disbelief, which turned to anger, which by halftime turned to simply disappointment. The only thing I could think of was what my father must have thought when I called him and told him I had been arrested when I was 20 years old.
My friend and I were running around a college dorm, knocking on doors and spraying fire extinguishers (they were just water, no chemicals). Apparently an RA did not think this was as funny as we did.1 Yada, yada, yada…I spent the night ankle shackled to a bench. When I was let out around noon the next day, I had to break the news to my parents. My Dad was silent on the phone which I tried to break up with an “I love you” to which he hung up the phone. Good on him for not strangling me through the receiver. I always wondered what he felt like when he heard the news that his favorite kid was an idiot. Now I know.
Regardless of the reasoning for why Carter spit on Dak, he simply can’t do something like that. He knows that. Just like with some sobriety, I knew that running around spraying fire extinguishers was an objectively incorrect decision. Have I done it again since? No. Did my Dad eventually speak to me again? Yes, of course. And we will do the same with Jalen Carter.
Carter is going into the most important season of his career. His trajectory is to become one of, if not the, highest paid players in the game (non-QB). He is the best player on the best defense in the league. That’s a tremendous amount of pressure. I don’t mean pressure as an excuse, I mean it like he is under an extreme microscope from all of us fans. Everything is riding on him and he does something like this? It makes us all feel like idiots. Can we trust him? Should all of our hopes and dreams that are irrationally tied to the Eagles be on the shoulders of a guy who gets himself ejected from the first game of the season before it even starts? Time will tell.
What matter is what happens from here. His teammates have to be able to trust him to be out there with them. He is needed and he was missed (Dallas went right at his vacancy). Other teams from here on will try to provoke him. He WILL get spit on by someone and it will probably be pretty soon. His teammates have to know that he won’t get himself in even more trouble. He may be suspended for this regardless of what Dak did to start it. If it happens again, the NFL will put the hammer down on him. We all need to know he won’t take the bait.
This is not a domestic violence situation or something like Carter losing his mind and killing Dak with his helmet as a weapon. It was stupid. I know that seems worse now, but it’s much better than anything else in the long run. We all assume it is a character flaw, but it doesn’t have to be. I’m sure my parents saw the long road of bad possibilities ahead when they got that phone call. That’s why we are so mad at Jalen Carter. We don’t know what he will do next. I needed to be vigilant and now so does he. Now Dak being the kind of person who spits at and taunts the other team unprovoked, that’s a different story…
By the way, I still stick by this:
- I was identified by police as the one who sprayed the RA, but the description was for someone with fair skin, blonde hair, and wearing clothes that strangely fit the profile of my blonde, fair skinned friend… ↩︎
Philly Front Office 
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