The $106 Million Man Is Wrecking Practice — Exactly What Camden Wanted

There’s a certain sound a training camp makes when everything is going right, and if you’ve stood on the grass at the Jefferson Health Training Complex this past week, you’ve heard it. It’s the collective groan of an offensive line that just got beat clean. It’s the whistle blowing a half-second after Jalen Carter is already three yards into the backfield.

The Eagles gave Carter the richest contract a defensive tackle has ever signed — $106 million guaranteed, an average of $38 million a year — and the fair question anywhere else would be whether a man who just got paid that kind of money still plays like he’s chasing it. Around here, we don’t ask questions like that. And Carter is answering anyway.

He doesn’t just win. He wrecks the whole practice.

GM Howie Roseman said Carter showed up in “phenomenal” shape, and it’s shown in the reps. Early in camp he ripped off a swipe move and was into the backfield before the guard could set his feet, notching a “sack” in a third-down drill. That’s the thing about Carter that folks outside this region don’t fully appreciate: he doesn’t just win his own matchup. He makes eleven other guys look worse than they are, which is another way of saying he makes the eleven guys on his side look a whole lot better.

But if you want the story that tells you where this team is heading, don’t only watch the big man. Watch the running backs. The offensive line has been opening holes you could drive a PATCO train through, and Saquon Barkley has been doing what Saquon does — one long run through the left side this week where he found the crease and simply detonated through it. Barkley’s talking openly about being used more as a pass-catcher out of the backfield under new coordinator Sean Mannion, and that should scare the rest of the NFC.

The one nobody’s talking about enough

That would be Tank Bigsby. The Eagles didn’t even land Bigsby until after camp broke last season, and the man has spent this camp making Roseman look like a genius. Bigsby runs every rep at 100 percent — no coasting, no half-speed walkthroughs, just a guy who plays angry whether it’s August or January. He averaged 5.9 yards a carry for the Birds last year, and through the early practices he’s been taking roughly half the first-team carries, looking fast and elusive and, frankly, hard to keep off the field. In a backfield that already has Barkley, that’s a luxury most teams would trade real assets for.

A defensive tackle playing like the money was an insult. A run game with its starter humming and a second back forcing his way in. You can feel the shape of something here.Samuel Banks

It’s one week of camp, and one week of camp has never won anybody a game. But this is a region that measures its Augusts by how they’ll pay off in December, and the early returns on this one are the kind you circle. Carter’s not chasing the money anymore. He’s chasing everybody in the backfield. Same as always.

Based on reporting from ESPN, NBC Sports Philadelphia, PhillyVoice, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Bleeding Green Nation.