Eagles defensive tackle Jalen Carter was fined but not suspended for spitting on Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott.
The incident has made Carter the face of the NFL’s renewed emphasis on improving sportsmanship.
The NFL is cracking down on non-football acts, which an executive described as having reached an ‘intolerable’ level.
Jalen Carter just might be the face of the future for game-wrecking defensive tackles in the NFL. Maybe someday the Philadelphia Eagles star will go down with the likes of Aaron Donald, Warren Sapp (aka QB Killa) and Mean Joe Greene for historical greatness.
Someday. Maybe.
As he gears up for the chance to make the life of Patrick Mahomes a bit miserable on Sunday in a rematch of Super Bowl 59, though, Carter is undoubtedly the current face for the NFL’s campaign on sportsmanship. Or, given his disgusting act of spitting on Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott before the season opener, he’s at least the poster child for what not to do in the name of sportsmanship.
Carter, 24, was fined $57,222 but avoided, well, an extended suspension as the NFL considered his ejection from the game against Dallas as something of a de facto, time-served suspension – and everybody who might have objected, including the NFL Players Association and Carter’s agent, Drew Rosenhaus, signed off on it without an appeal.
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It’s fair to question whether he could have drawn a stiffer penalty, but the NFL’s logic with the discipline is tight enough. Carter already missed a game. The Eagles’ defense was weakened in a key game in which the centerpiece player was tossed before playing a single snap. The fine covers his Week 1 game check. And remember, precedents for spitting incidents dictate fines, not suspensions.
Of course, there are always the optics. That Carter spat in such a high-profile moment – the start of the NFL’s kickoff showcase – forced a strong response. Then again, had the spitting occurred in, say, the fourth quarter, I’m doubting that the discipline would have been settled as it was – precedent or not, given the league’s point of emphasis on sportsmanship.
In any event, with his sordid act, Carter unwittingly did the NFL a huge favor, too. No, Roger Goodell didn’t want the filthy controversy to dominate the water cooler talk to kick off the new season. But as the NFL messages about the need for “zero tolerance” Carter showed exactly why there’s this spotlight on game-day decorum.
Last season, penalties for unsportsmanlike conduct skyrocketed 133% from 2023, which included a 52% spike in violations for gestures that were sexually suggestive. Taunting penalties had a 55% rise.
“We have clear video examples we’ll share with the players and about what it means to be a professional at all times,” Troy Vincent, the NFL’s executive vice president for football operations, said during the NFL owners’ meetings last spring.
Well, example added.
Vincent, who played 15 NFL seasons as a defensive back, has pretty much adopted a crusade to preserve sportsmanship, with energy similar to efforts over the years to take the helmet out of the game as a weapon, and also take measures to better protect defenseless players. While some deride the NFL as the “No Fun League” when it comes to curbing excessive celebrations, in my opinion there’s clearly a need to cut out the taunting that can ignite fights, gyrating hips that defy standards of decency, “throat-slash” gestures and surely, mimicking the use of weapons as some sort of celebratory image.
As part of the crackdown, NFL owners last spring also amended a rule that outlawed the so-called “nose wipe” gesture that has been associated with gang culture.
“Some of the things we’ve seen, there’s just no place in the game for it,” Vincent said on a video distributed to the NFL community before the season. “There’s no place in the game to be standing over your opponent. There’s no place in the game to have violent gestures. That’s not the game of football. We just have to play by the rules, respect your opponent, respect your teammates and play the game in between the whistles.”
It’s a theme similar to the message Vincent shared at the start of the NFL playoffs in January, when he conducted a call with coaches and executives from the 14 playoff teams and maintained that officials would have zero tolerance for non-football acts that had reached what he described as an “intolerable” level.
Vincent told the teams that it wasn’t the mission of officials to inject themselves into a competitive situation by removing players due to unsportsmanlike conduct. Thus, he wanted a heightened alert on conduct and asked that the teams help with the message.
That call set the tone for the offseason actions, including the point of emphasis from officials. For all of that emphasis, though, the NFL probably didn’t foresee a spitting incident to kick off the season. But no doubt it’s part of the package. And now it’s on Carter’s resume as a stain on his reputation.
“Carter has to be smarter than this, he has to be better than this,” Jason Kelce, the former Eagles center, said during the “New Heights” podcast he hosts with his brother, Travis. “He has a chance to be one of the best defensive linemen in this era of football. That’s how good this kid can be.”
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Will the NFL’s message on sportsmanship sink in? I’m guessing it hits home with Carter, who quickly apologized for his actions and pledged to be better.
Yet spitting aside, it’ll be interesting to see whether the larger theme on sportsmanship sticks across the league. Not long after Carter was ejected, Eagles linebacker Nolan Smith (who incidentally played with Carter at Georgia) drew a flag for taunting as he flexed and hovered over Cowboys running back Miles Sanders following a tackle.
On Sunday, Green Bay Packers cornerback Xavier McKinney similarly stood over Detroit Lions receiver Kalif Raymond after blowing up a block in the second quarter. And he hardly regretted getting penalized 15 yards for his taunting.
“Hey, it is what it is,” McKinney told reporters after the game. “I had to set the tone not just for our team but for our defense of how we want to play. I’ll take the flag, I’ll live with it.”
In other words, not everyone is buying into the NFL’s efforts to preserve sportsmanship.
Contact Jarrett Bell at jbell@usatoday.com or follow on social media: On X: @JarrettBell
On Bluesky: jarrettbell.bsky.social
