Georgia defensive tackle Jalen Carter 2023 NFL Draft scouting report
Jalen Carter has essentially secured himself in the top 10 not only with his dominant play but also being a major contributor to another Georgia football national championship. Taking over the spot of Jordan Davis is a tough task considering he is a freak athlete at his size. Carter filled that spot almost to perfection as he was just as disruptive and dominant like Davis was a year ago. Now declaring for the NFL Draft we will look into why scouts believe he is not only a top 10 pick but could very easily be top 5.
Jalen Carter played in 10 games this season as he missed a decent chunk during the season with an MCL injury. He played in 308 snaps where he recorded 25 total tackles. Carter had 25 total pressures on QB’s, including 17 hurries, 5 hits and 3 sacks on the year. The SEC always has a plethora of offensive lineman that get drafted year in year out but when Carter is out on the field he makes some of these lineman look like high schoolers.
Along with Carter’s two national championships with Georgia he was nominated and honored with different awards. He was an unanimous All-American for 2022, first team All-SEC for 2022, preseason All-America, preseason watch list for the Lott Trophy, Outland Trophy and Bronco Nagurski Trophy.
The Chicago Bears in the case of Jalen Carter could certainly use a player like him. The Bears defense in 2022 ranked 31st in rush yards. They ranked 32nd in rush TD’s. Also ranking 32nd was redzone touchdowns. And another 32nd out of 32 teams ranking was sacks. Although Carter won’t be primarily used for sacks truly any new talent on the defensive line will be a plus for Chicago. As was mentioned the Bears rushing defense was so very poor and a great way to stop the bleeding is to draft a monster from Georgia who stuffs run plays prior to the line of scrimmage.
Let’s get into the scouting report for Jalen Carter where we will look at strengths, weaknesses and if he will be a good fit for the Chicago Bears in 2023 NFL Draft.
Jalen Carter
Position: Defensive Tackle
Height/Weight: 6 foot 3, 310 pounds
Career Stats: 35 games played, 991 snaps, 71 total tackles, 72 total QB pressures, 50 total QB hurries, 13 QB hits and 9 total sacks.
Strengths:
- Elite agility and quickness considering Carter’s size. Impressive first step catching blocker off guard.
- Great change of direction. Super quick twitch athlete leaving slow footed lineman behind.
- Has excellent lateral speed with ability to shadow half backs in the run game.
- Immense strength with his hands to control run lanes and shed blocks to fill gaps.
- Makes impressive bear hug tackles that stop plays from getting started wreaking havoc in the backfield.
Weaknesses:
- Doesn’t always play with consistent pad level which leads to blockers getting into his chest.
- When double teamed can be taken out without an answer to it.
- His base isn’t well developed and can be taken out of the run game by bigger interior lineman.
Jalen Carter:
Highest-graded UGA defender
Highest-graded Power 5 defender
Highest-graded UGA defender in the @PFF_College era (just ahead of Roquan Smith’s ‘17 season)More eye-popping defensive numbers from the championship season on @ugasportscom https://t.co/ApqUdRtE9q pic.twitter.com/msSEA15JSW
— Brent Rollins (@BrentRollinsPhD) January 17, 2023
If Jalen Carter was there at No. 8 overall, how fast would you sprint the card up? 😅pic.twitter.com/4vgWdGLzkX
— Falcons PFN (@Falcons_PFN) January 11, 2023
How does Jalen Carter fit with the Chicago Bears?
The two snippets above are a glimpse of who Jalen Carter is. Defensive tackles are more and more important these days because they are asked to do so much more than just a handful of years ago. D-tackles need to be sideline to sideline players at times and not only have to eat up space inside but get through the double teams and be agile enough to cut through zone schemes. Jalen Carter has shown the ability to do all of these things at his monster size effectively and sometimes with complete dominance.
The Bears ranked last or next to it in basically every rushing ranking last season. Carter is the first step in rebuilding the Bears defensive line that is basically depleted of young pure talent. Will he be a team changer? Will the Bears become a dominant defensive line right away? No. But starting with Carter and building around him the Bears wouldn’t be far off from being a competent rush defense sooner rather than later.
Is Carter worth the number 1 overall pick. Unfortunately, no because defensive tackles aren’t viewed that highly especially if there is a dominant edge rusher in the draft which there always is. To me though when it comes to rebuilds guys like Jalen Carter are incredibly important. Solidifying the interior to stop teams from bludgeoning you on the ground is a very important step. Although viewed not as a first overall pick, if the Bears can move back to 3,4,5 or somewhere late in the top 10 and Carter is still there, absolutely they should take him.
Projected round:
CBS Mock Draft (No. 4 overall)
Dane Brugler’s The Athletic Mock (No. 4 overall)
Sports Illustrated mock draft (No. 4 overall)
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