If Jalen Carter falls to 13

[NYDreamer]

On 4/3/2023 at 5:16 PM, Beerfish said:

"Georgia DT Jalen Carter visiting Bears; won't visit teams without top-10 draft pick"

Yeah, no thanks.

Injuries, conditioning, legal troubles, entitlement.

 

He checks almost every bust check box.

Yeah, it is interesting.  I just read an article on Robert Nkemediche https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2023/04/07/steve-keim-robert-nkemdiche-didnt-succeed-because-he-didnt-love-football-enough/   Remember him, the talented DL who was a top recruit out of Ole Miss but slipped in the draft.  Loads of talent but the red flags and love for football held him back from being great in the NFL. Now each prospect is different I get that and I guess we would have to trust that all due diligence is done before the selection.

[Matt39]

Yikes:

In the days leading up to an NFL draft almost 40 years ago, Dick Steinberg and his peers in the NFL scouting community were coming to grips with the exhausting uncertainty of evaluating defensive linemen.

From the first round of 1985, Bruce Smith and Chris Doleman made the Hall of Fame, Ray Childress was a perennial Pro Bowler, Ron Holmes and William “The Refrigerator” Perry were solid players and Kevin Brooks and Darryl Sims were busts.

“There’s been more mistakes made in the defensive line than any other position in the last 15 years,” said Steinberg, at the time director of player development for the New England Patriots. “The biggest reason is inconsistent competitiveness.”

Nothing much has changed. Other than quarterback, one could argue that a defensive tackle with dominant traits might be the most difficult to find and the hardest to evaluate. Because their value is extreme, teams always have and probably always will loosen their grading criteria and reach on big people.

Four days remain to the draft. Staffers and scouts place eleventh-hour phone calls seeking telling nuggets about a player’s past. The general manager and head coach close the door and watch tape of someone for the 10th time. For teams with a selection in the first round, one player demands a decision. That is Georgia’s Jalen Carter, one of those inconsistent competitors with bountiful athletic gifts.

Even casual football fans know about the tragic mid-January night in Athens, Ga., when Carter raced his Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk against a Ford Expedition late at night just hours after the team’s parade for winning a second consecutive national championship. The Expedition was traveling about 100 miles per hour when it slammed into a power pole. Two people were killed.

Carter lied to police about his proximity to the crash. In mid-March, he pleaded no contest to two misdemeanor charges of reckless driving and racing. He was sentenced to 12 months on probation and ordered to pay a fine, perform community service and attend a safe-driving course.

“That was all about half lies, half-baked truths,” said an executive in personnel for an NFL team. “The championship is over so he’s out from under their purview and he’s racing on the streets of Athens and people get killed. He had to lie like a dog at the combine. And there’s not one person there at Georgia that will endorse him. What are the red flags here?”

Enraged though they might be about that tragedy not to mention Carter’s ticket in September for driving 89 mph in a 45-mph zone, teams now must make a multi-millionaire business/football decision about a controversial player that remains eligible for the draft.

“The arrest thing and all that, you can deal with it,” said another executive. “You can help guys get through some off-the-field staff and mature.”

In interviews with 15 football executives over the past three weeks, the overriding question regarding Carter is singular: Does he love football?

If teams conclude that Carter does, they might select him. If teams don’t, they will rule him out.

“His football character’s a mess,” said one evaluator. “You can’t compromise football character. If they don’t love football and they don’t know how to work, it’s going to be hard for them to become who they should become.”

Another scout said Carter had demonstrated to him during his three-year career hat he didn’t love football and didn’t love the weight room. His conditioning became such an issue at Georgia that the coaches put him on the treadmill almost daily.

In March, Carter showed up at pro day weighing 323 pounds, nine more than at the combine. After Joe Cullen, the defensive line coach for the Kansas City Chiefs, orchestrated drill work for the assembled NFL audience, Carter ran out of gas and abruptly quit.

“He put him through the ringer,” said an executive. “They were trying to break him, and he broke. No, it’s not a black mark. It’s a question mark, not a black mark.”

He continued: “They’re young dudes. They all got issues. Some of them have more than others. When it comes down to playing the game there had never been anything criminal until recently. He does stuff that other people can’t. I don’t think he’ll fall out of the first round or anything like that. He’s too risky for the top 10 for me because, when you think of the top 10, you think of face of the franchise and second contracts.”

Another personnel chief gave Carter a 70-30 chance to succeed in the NFL.

“I don’t trust that he likes football,” he said. “Supremely talented, immature, does it on his pace. … If he loved football, I mean really loved it, he’d be a f--king beast.

“He’ll wind up being like an average NFL guy. It’ll be like (the) dumb ass from Tennessee. What was his name? Haynesworth.”

In March 2002, Albert Haynesworth (6-5 ½, 320) ran a 4.93 at pro day in Knoxville. After that, Tim Krumrie, the gung-ho defensive line coach of the Cincinnati Bengals, put Haynesworth through his paces. After a while, Haynesworth just quit just like Carter did 21 years later in Athens. Haynesworth, the sixth defensive lineman selected, went 15th.

At the time, Haynesworth was compared to Chester McGlockton (6-4, 337, 5.05), the 16th player selected in 1992, and Darrell Russell (6-4 ½, 325, 4.85), the second player picked in 1997. Today, Carter (6-3, 323), who by choice didn’t run a 40, bench press, perform jumps or attempt shuttle runs, is being compared by veteran scouts to those three mega-talented underachievers.

“He’s in that mode, same category,” one scout said. “He reminded me (most) of Darrell Russell. He made a couple Pro Bowls and had like seven (substance abuse) suspensions, then got killed in a car wreck (in 2005).”

McGlockton played 12 seasons for four teams and was voted to four Pro Bowls. Before the ’92 draft, scouts described him as a rather obnoxious individual who didn’t even try on about half the plays at Clemson and would rather not have practiced.

“Somebody may fall for it,” Steinberg, then the general manager of the New York Jets, said a few weeks before the Raiders drafted McGlockton. “Maybe he’ll change and compete harder, but he never has in his history.”

Carter’s up-and-down level of intensity and production has left a similar impression on the scouts of today.

“There is potential for bust, yes,” an evaluator said. “It’s all up to him. Those guys, Haynesworth (10 years) and McGlockton, played at least for a while. They got big contracts. Carter would love to have a Chester McGlockton and Albert Haynesworth career length and the amount of money they made.”

Would the careers of McGlockton (four Pro Bowls, 51 sacks) and Haynesworth (two Pro Bowls, 30 ½ sacks) satisfy Carter’s suitors? That depends on expectations.

My poll of 16 evaluators saw Carter emerge as a unanimous choice. He totaled the maximum 80 points in 1-2-3-4-5 balloting.

Eleven others received votes, including Bryan Bresee (38), Keeanu Benton (28), Mazi Smith (26), Calijah Kancey (24), Keion White (19), Adetomiwa Adebawore (seven), Gervon Dexter (five), Zacch Pickens (five), Siaki Ika (three), Tyler Lacy (three) and Byron Young (two).

“There were 19 defensive tackles officially at the combine and 40-plus defensive ends,” one personnel director said. “The emphasis on defensive tackles just isn’t there in college ball so there just aren’t that many.”