Defensive tackle Jalen Carter‘s conditioning was not where it needed to be at his Pro Day workout in March and it was a topic of conversation at Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni’s press conference on Friday.
Carter was one of many players to report to the facility for the start of rookie minicamp on Friday. Sirianni was asked a few questions about Carter’s conditioning and answered one by saying none of the players “are in really good football shape” at this point in the calendar.
“So today was not about finding out what their conditioning level was,” Sirianni said. “Today was about going out there and my coaching points to our coaches were, listen, their bodies are not ready to play yet. This is all about protecting the players while still getting ready to play.”
Sirianni was more specific about Carter in response to other questions. He said that he has “zero” concerns about Carter’s “level of conditioning at this point in time” and that he’s confident Carter will do whatever’s needed in order to remain that way.
“I told them straight up, things that I will — we obviously went over our rules, right, our team rules. And one of those team rules is be on time, and another one of those rules is be the weight you’re supposed to be and those are non-negotiable for me, and they know that and we’ll just keep that standard as we go,” Sirianni said. “But yeah, I sense that he wants to be the best pro he can be, and not every place — again, I don’t know exactly. I have no idea what each program says the person’s supposed to weigh, right, or sometimes, programs, even within the NFL don’t track that or they track it, but they don’t say, you have to weigh this amount; we do. So that’s just new to here. We will get him to what he’s supposed to play at, and I have no doubt in my mind he’ll do whatever he needs to do to be the player he needs to be.”
The Eagles will continue their minicamp through the weekend and then Carter and the rest of the team’s rookies will begin working their way into playing shape alongside the team’s veterans.