Riding early success, Jalen Carter looks to prove Seahawks, others wrong

The Seattle Seahawks play the Philadelphia Eagles on December 17, near the end of the season, possibly when playoff implications are at a season-high.

But unless he’s out for the season, chances are the broadcast will talk about Jalen Carter more than anything else.

And for good reason?

We won’t know that for a while, but the early media momentum points towards that likely scenario.

John Schneider made his decision. Instead of going with the guy that probably half the country thought Seattle would draft, they passed - as did five other teams - and went a different route.

But certain players get the attention, and Carter has proven to be one of those. If he’s on the roster, they’re going to talk about him. This is one week into non-padded practice, and the reports from both Philadelphia observers and Jalen Carter himself are that Carter will Aaron Donald his way into immediate stardom.

I take this part to be especially interesting. Carter may be a very good player, but this is the embodiment of the philosophy as to why Schneider didn’t draft him. Neither did the Lions, Cardinals, Raiders, Falcons, or Chicago Bears.

These are the easiest practices to give full effort. These are the practices that show the very least about either side of the line of scrimmage. And with a litany of questions about his character, three days into slapping hands in shorts, Carter is trash talking the Dallas Cowboys. He’s hyping his future success. Good job, buddy.

It was abundantly clear from the post-draft press conferences, that Jalen Carter did not fit the type of person Pete Carroll & Co. wanted in the organization. That outweighed the other options at pick No. 5, and we’ll never know at which spot they would have deemed him worth it.

Some people will disagree. I wrote this in part because of the “we made a mistake” comments already. If Carter sacks Geno Smith, we’ll never hear the end of it, from both sides unfortunately.

It is inevitable from an optics standpoint, as the team which most surprisingly didn’t draft Carter, he’ll be connected to the Seahawks all season. But if we painstakingly teach ourselves every summer to not overreact to training camp highlights, this may be an area to apply that as well. I am not the least surprised that this first week went well for him.