When the Tennessee Titans made Jeffrey Simmons the highest-paid DT in the league, many believed it would help Jalen Carter get a better deal from the Philadelphia Eagles. Locking your 2x Pro Bowler in long-term should be an easy decision, but the problem is that the Eagles aren’t acting like it. They’ve remained silent throughout the contract holdout, and according to former Eagles fullback Jon Ritchie, that’s a big red flag.

“I have so much faith in this team,” Ritchie said on Sportsradio 94WIP. “I do not have faith in Jalen Carter. Not Jalen as a player, but Jalen every other way.

“I’ll take his get off over anyone’s, I’ll take his physical toughness over anyone out there,” Ritchie continued. “This guy, the question remains – why is Howie [Roseman] hesitating? Why are the Eagles hesitating when the D-Tackle marker has just been reset with Jeffrey Simmons? They’ve already waited too long.”

As Ritchie sees it, the off-field narratives around Carter may have superseded any urgency Philly may have to lock him in. Carter entered the league in 2023 with a January car crash still attached to his name – one that took the lives of two. 2024 saw him draw three unnecessary roughness penalties, get benched ahead of a game as punishment, and even pay a hefty $17,445 fine for getting into a fight with the Washington Commanders in the postseason.

Even last year, in the season-opener against the Dallas Cowboys, Jalen Carter got kicked out of the game for spitting on quarterback Dak Prescott. Carter paid a $57,222 fine, and the incident gave the Eagles another example of how Carter keeps pulling the conversation away from football. Meanwhile, his health issues also made the picture worse.

A shoulder issue had bugged Carter right from the training camp last offseason. His shoulder became a problem again in Week 4 when he aggravated it. He underwent procedures on both shoulders last December, and the durability questions have lingered since then.

Head coach Nick Sirianni did not help clear anything up earlier this month when he had no answer for why Carter was not participating in minicamp team drills. He even refused to talk about whether the shoulder procedure or his contract talks were a factor in his absence. NFL insider Albert Breer, meanwhile, recently made the case that the Eagles “are hesitant to pay him.”

“Philadelphia is telling you what you need to know with its actions,” Breer wrote. “The Eagles have always been aggressive in paying their own, in large part because they know that the earlier you do the deal, the better the price you’ll get.

“So the fact that we’re into June without Jalen Carter having a deal is notable. And I’d guess if they do one now, before his fourth season as a pro, then it’d come with flexibility for the team. If Carter won’t give them that flexibility now, maybe he’ll just wait another year. Which would make this a little like the George Pickens situation in Dallas–where a team might want to see a little more from a player, just from a character perspective, before committing long term.”

The Eagles had already exercised the fifth-year option on Jalen Carter’s contract back in April, giving him $27M for 2026. It doesn’t look like an extension is in the cards right now, and the standoff between Carter and Philly has already reached a point where analysts are speculating trade destinations all across the league. The San Francisco 49ers and the Chicago Bears are among the suggested destinations if the Eagles decide to part ways with him.

Former Eagles star LeSean ‘Shady’ McCoy, on the other hand, has pushed back on the idea of a trade sending Carter away. McCoy calls him “the best player on defense” and “disruptive all the time.” But the Eagles are not only deciding whether he can help them win now, they are also deciding whether they trust the whole package enough to pay him like a franchise cornerstone.

That’s why Jon Ritchie’s warning hits home. He didn’t question Jalen Carter’s talent; he questioned the part that comes after it. And until Philadelphia answers that, the stalled contract and the holdout show us where this is eventually going – outside of Philly.