Jalen Carter Just Became the Highest-Paid Defensive Tackle in NFL History

On the same morning the Eagles reported to training camp, the franchise made the loudest financial statement of its offseason: Jalen Carter is now the highest-paid defensive tackle in NFL history.

The team signed its 24-year-old star to a four-year, $152 million extension that ties him to Philadelphia through 2031, according to ESPN, The Philadelphia Inquirer and NBC Sports. It resets the market at the position — no interior defensive lineman has ever been paid like this — and it locks up the centerpiece of a defense the Eagles clearly believe they can win with for the rest of the decade.

Paying the man in the middle

Think about what that means. Carter came into the league as the ninth overall pick in 2023 out of Georgia, and in three seasons he has turned into exactly the kind of disruptive force that changes how an offense has to plan its whole afternoon. The men who play his position rarely fill a highlight reel the way a receiver does, but coaches will tell you the fastest way to wreck a quarterback’s day is to collapse the pocket from the inside. That’s Carter. Philadelphia just decided he’s worth paying like the most important defensive player in football.

You don’t hand out the biggest defensive-tackle contract in history unless you’re building the whole thing around the guy in the middle.Samuel Banks

A statement about how the Eagles spend

And the timing tells its own story. This is the same front office that traded A.J. Brown to New England a few weeks ago and let this fan base argue about it all summer. Howie Roseman doesn’t spend sentimentally — he spends where he believes the value is. Moving on from a star receiver and then making a defensive tackle the highest-paid at his position in the same offseason isn’t a contradiction. It’s a philosophy: build the trenches, keep your young cornerstones, and let everyone else adjust.

For a South Jersey fan base that has watched this team win with defense and dominant line play before, this is the part of the roster you plant a flag in. Receivers come and go. A wrecking ball in the middle of your defensive line, signed through 2031, is the kind of thing you build a contender around.

Carter reported to camp this morning like everyone else. He’ll practice tomorrow like everyone else. He’ll just be doing it as the highest-paid player at his position the league has ever seen — and, for the Eagles, as the clearest sign yet of who they think they are.

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