With the 2022 college football season kicking off, Georgia Bulldogs quarterback Jalen Carter returns as one of the country’s biggest stars ahead of the 2023 NFL Draft. We’re looking at a potential pick among the top five as he takes the lead after Georgia’s record draft pick.
The NFL may not yet have welcomed a top-tier Georgia national championship-winning defense when Jalen Carter enters his third year, showing top-five credentials in next April’s draft.
Carter’s Quinn Williams-esque stock is currently making the same stir, perhaps only marginally behind Anderson’s von Miller-esque stock.
Not the groundbreaking “men that size shouldn’t move so fast” exception in an era of reproducing top-class athletes without positional discrimination, but his provocative mobility at 6’3″ and 310 pounds is staggering, unfair and of potentially exceptional caliber.
Earlier this year, Georgia set an NFL Draft record when five Bulldogs defensemen were drafted in the first round in Las Vegas. Defensive end Travon Walker moved first overall to the Jacksonville Jaguars, followed by Philadelphia Eagles defenseman Jordan Davis at No. 13, linebacker Key Walker moved to the Green Bay Packers at No. 22, defenseman Devonte Wyatt moved to the Packers at No. 28 and safety Lewis Sin to the Minnesota Vikings at No. 32. That’s not to mention linebackers Nakob Dean, long considered a first-round prospect, and Channing Tindall, who landed the Vikings. Eagles and Miami Dolphins in the third round, respectively.
Kirby Smart has bid farewell to the core of his all-consuming, sacrificial but suffocating defense, and he may still have Carter’s most talented operator at his disposal. This is history.
“He was eclipsed in maturity by two other [Davis and Wyatt] “He was by no means overshadowed in terms of talent,” Smart said this summer. – Because he is as talented or even more talented in sports than those two. A completely different guy than those two, but he has matured.
“His training habits have improved this year. He trains more consistently and needs to keep doing it. He says, “You’re right, Coach, I didn’t do my best on this play.” But now it happens much less frequently.”
The defensive tackle finished 2021 pretty well on the Georgia defense, which gave everyone a chance to add to their stats by tallying 37 tackles (17 solo), as well as 8.5 tackles for loss (third on team), three sacks, 33 quarterbacks pressing (second on team) and two blocked shots, including one against Alabama, to prevent a field goal in the national championship game.
As noted by ESPN’s Bill Connelly, versatile bullet linebacker Dean took 11.4% of the snaps, while Carter took 11.7% of the snaps at around 80 pounds as a frontline control point. In layman’s terms, there should be a rule against this.