Report: Jalen Carter won't meet with teams outside top-10 in NFL draft
Report: Jalen Carter won't meet with teams outside top-10 originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago
The Bears just made the cut to earn the right to meet with incoming NFL draft prospect Jalen Carter. According to multiple reports, Carter’s agent is declining invitations to visit teams who currently sit outside the top-10 in the NFL draft. Right now, the Bears control the No. 9 pick and they were slated to meet with Carter on Monday.
Rosenhaus saying Carter won’t meet with teams outside the top-10 is clearly meant to indicate to GMs around the league that he’s confident his player will be gone early in the first round. But it could backfire. By not meeting with other teams, Carter won’t get the chance to blow away some GM picking around 15, let’s say, so that the GM would be motivated to trade up and grab him. If Carter does have work to do to repair his image, now he’ll have fewer chances to do it.
Not too long ago, Carter was considered a slam dunk top-five pick, with some believing he could go to the Bears at No. 1 overall. Over the past few months his draft stock has slid in the public eye. In March, Carter pled no contest to two misdemeanor counts of reckless driving and racing, in connection with a deadly car crash that killed one of Carter’s Bulldogs teammates and a Bulldogs staffer. He also showed up to his Pro Day significantly heavier than he was when he weighed in at the NFL Combine, and had to cut his Pro Day short because he was too winded to complete all his drills.
Carter still remains one of the most talented prospects in the draft, and that talent alone could warrant a team using a top-10 pick to select him. Bears GM Ryan Poles has also made it clear the Bears will do their due diligence on Carter before making a decision on whether or not to select him, if he’s available when they’re on the clock. That due diligence includes meeting with him.
“Like the combine, it’s a collection of information," Poles said last month about meeting with Carter. "We got some there. We got more at the pro day. We’ll bring him, talk to him and get to know him even better. Some point in mid-April, we’ll sit down and see how we want to handle it.”
So that’s exactly what the Bears did.
On the field, Carter could be the exact player they’re looking for to boost their defensive line play. They need to make sure he’s exactly the player they need in the locker room, too. It should be noted that GMs aren’t always exactly truthful this time of year, but if you take what Poles said about players like Carter during the owners meetings, it sounds like Carter would need to truly prove he’s not a liability for the Bears to feel comfortable taking him.
“We’re at a better place (to draft a player with character concerns),” Poles said via Adam Hoge. “I think taking the time here to get to know the guys in the locker room and understanding the maturity level there. But at the same time we also want to be careful, because we’re still young and impressionable. So I think making sure that we continue to bring a good core group in is important. Maybe down the road you want to take a risk like that, I think the locker room begins to run itself so you can take some chances. But right now we need both, we need talent, but at the same time I’m still going to be a little bit cautious of bringing in the wrong type of person.”
The NFL draft begins on Apr. 27.
