Jalen Carter 2023 NFL Draft profile: Scout report for the Georgia IDL
Jalen Carter, Georgia: 6’3”, 310 pounds; JR.
A top-20 national recruit in 2020, Jalen Carter had some legit flashes as a true freshman. He really took off in his second season, arguably being the most disruptive player along that Georgia front-seven already, which saw five guys get drafted in the first round alone.
Last year he was the dominant for the Bulldogs and led the way for back-to-back national titles. Across his final 27 games, he put up 15.5 tackles for loss, six sacks, two forced fumbles and four passes batted down at the line, going from second-team All-SEC in 2021 to first-team All-American this past year.
Jalen Carter scout report: Strengths
+ The shock in this young man’s hands to control 330-pound guards is unheard of.
+ Has the natural force that even on neutral pad-level confrontations, he can ride guards backwards to squeeze down running lanes.
+ You see him just whack blockers out of the way and swallow up ball-carriers with regularity.
+ Had one play against Kentucky in 2021, where he literally slapped the guard to the side and ate up the back for a TFL.
+ Tremendous lateral agility to work down the line and over blocks against perimeter-oriented run schemes, plus then the force to pull blockers to the side and get the initial wrap on the ball-carrier.
+ Has some freaky reps on tape, where he’s slanted across the face of guards and just makes that guy’s face land on the turf with a quick arm-over to create chaos in the backfield.
+ You see the same back-dooring zone blockers, with the short-area burst to track down the running back trying to get wide.
+ And when being blocked down against, he can suddenly work over the top, to chase after the ball with impressive burst.
+ This is somebody against whom you have to put a comprehensive gameplan together, because he can create chaos in the backfield in a hurry, by holding up pullers and making plays when on paper he’s clearly accounted for.
+ Can straight-up drive interior offensive linemen back into the quarterback’s lap and the way he can grab underneath the shoulder-plate of linemen and turn their shoulders, to open up a path for himself, really stands out.
+ Yet he displays crazy flexibility as a pass-rusher, to torque his upper body to where his shoulders are at a 90-degree angle to the ground, and then he can step through the gap.
+ If guys try to get underneath him, he gets by them in the flash of an eye with the high swim.
+ Has almost odd balance to bang around in traffic as a rusher and somehow stay on his feet to impact the QB.
+ The agility to redirect and cross-face blockers who slide towards him or counter the other way is often times simply too much for opponents.
+ The way he can stop and start as well as step around bodies almost doesn’t look real for a guy his size.
+ And he routinely frees himself late by pulling the arm over the top or rip through the reach of blockers.
+ Has the ability to loop all the way out wide from zero-alignments and then corner back towards the QB by powering through tackles running at an angle.
+ Only Alabama’s Quinnen Williams in 2018 had a higher pass-rush win rate (20.0%) among Power Five interior D-linemen than Carter in ’21 (18.9%) over the last five years.
+ And what he did last year also with Nolan Smith missing time and all those high draft-picks leaving UGA, might have been even more impressive, considering there weren’t nearly as many legitimate threats around him, to where he saw extra attention constantly (yet still had a 16.3% win rate).
Jalen Carter scout report: Weaknesses
– His pad-level overall into contact could be better and it’ll be more apparent at the next level, unlike against some college kids, who he could simply overwhelm physically.
– Could still do a better job of playing half the man and maintaining vision on the ball in the run game.
– Would benefit from being a little more pro-active with getting to his secondary rush maneuvers if he can’t get those instant wins on the high swim.
Jalen Carter scout report: Grade
Quick spoiler – Jalen Carter will be my number one overall prospect. Guys like this just don’t come along.
The only interior D-lineman I’ve seen dominate high-level competition like this was Quinnen Williams four years ago (who I also had at the top of my big board) and Carter is even a little more physically talented.
The way he was tossing around SEC linemen in the run game was insane to watch and he was the most impactful pass-rusher on Georgia’s vaunted defenses the last two years (racking up 66 pressures across 537 pass-rush snaps).
His impact on games was felt even more so this past season, when he had far less help around him. I will never get the picture out of my head of him holding up LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels like a trophy in the conference title game (which the Bulldogs would of course win), en route to their second straight national title.
The conversation around Jalen Carter right now of course is the incident he was part of last year and his general maturity, but I don’t have the information to judge any of that – purely based on tape, this is the best player in this draft.
Grade: Top-five overall
You might like other 2023 NFL Draft Scouting Reports: Tyree Wilson (EDGE), Texas Tech; Will Anderson Jr. (EDGE), Alabama; Jaxon Smith-Njigba (WR), Ohio; Zay Flowers (WR), Boston; Jordan Addison (WR), USC; Jordan Addison (WR), USC; Quentin Johnston (WR), TCU; Zach Charbonnet (RB), UCLA; Bijan Robinson (RB), Texas.
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