Do you believe Jalen Carter got character issues that need to be addressed? Well, ESPN analyst Todd McShay thinks so, but the problem is it doesn’t look like McShay talks to anyone from Georgia.
Was this an agent from another player that gave him this info which is bitter Carter didn’t sign with them? Is it a team feeding this info to McShay, hoping that will make Carter fall in the draft?
Every year a black player gets labeled with the character issues flags but with little to no evidence. Thankfully Touch Down Wire points this out while Bruce Feldman from The Athletic spoke to a teammate of Carter who debunked the notion he doesn’t get along with everyone.
Weston Wallace tells a story about how when Carter found out walk-ons had to pay for their meals, Carter used money from his scholarship to make sure Wallace got lunch every day. This doesn’t sound like someone with an issue in the locker room.
ESPN analyst Todd McShay did that in a circular way before the College Football Championship, in which Georgia thumped TCU, 65-7, with this bon mot:
“With Carter, there are some character issues. Does he get along with everybody? What’s he like to deal with in the locker room, those sorts of issues. I know it’s early in the process, but I’m forewarning everybody out there. Carter is going to be a hot-button name when we talk about some of the intangible aspects of it. I think Pete Carroll (and the Seattle Seahawks) at No. 2, who has a long of history taking guys with questionable character and then developing them and having them work out, that would make a lot of sense to me.
“That will be the big discussion. It’s not about his talent, his size or his explosive take off or finishing as a pass rusher, it’s about the character and do we want to bring that guy into the building.”
Well, Carter’s teammates were not at all happy about that speculation, and it turns out that Carter is as much a leader off the field. Weston Wallace was not entitled to free team lunches as a walk-on, which tells you one more thing about the NCAA’s byzantine policies. Carter, who used to go up against Wallace every day in practice before Wallace switched to the defensive line, found out about it, and he wasn’t going to let it continue, per Bruce Feldman of The Athletic.
“Jalen heard about that,” Wallace told Feldman. “I’m the only walk-on in the defensive line room, and he goes, ‘I’m not gonna let that happen.’ So he used his scholarship money to pay for me to get lunch every single day.”
As far as the “character concerns,” Wallace said that those were out of line.
“You honestly don’t know the guy if you think that,” Wallace said. “You can ask anybody on the team, whether it’s the O-line that he bullies every day out there. … Everybody thinks he’s an all-around great guy.”
Who are you going to believe?
Todd McShay, who has a history of doing this, or Carter’s teammates and coaches?
You know the answer to that.
Remember doing draft season takes everything with a grain of salt. Until any of these players do or say something that will prove they are bad people, give them the benefit of the doubt.
