Analyst offers advice for how Eagles' Nick Sirianni should address Jalen Carter spitting incident

Jalen Carter left the Philadelphia Eagles without their best defensive player for their regular-season opener against the rival Dallas Cowboys on Thursday night when he got himself ejected from the game for spitting on Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott before the contest's first snap. 

Philadelphia managed to notch a 24-20 win without having Carter in the lineup. Nevertheless, former Pittsburgh Steelers safety and current ESPN analyst Ryan Clark believes Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni needs to send a message to Carter and others in the locker room as the team prepares for its Week 2 matchup at the Kansas City Chiefs on Sept. 14.

How Nick Sirianni could "punish" Jalen Carter

"If you’re Nick Sirianni, you have to make an example out of [Carter]," Clark said during Friday's edition of the ESPN "Get Up" program, per Matt Yoder of Awful Announcing. "That’s one of those times that you walk in the meeting and you put the film on...Bill Belichick would do this. He’d put the film on, then he’d cut it off. And he’d only show Jalen Carter spitting on Dak Prescott. And you gotta cuss him out. You gotta tell him how big a mistake this is. You gotta tell him how he let the entire team down. And if you continue to do this, you’ll never be the player you’re supposed to be and certainly not the man."

ESPN stats show that the Eagles ended the 2024 regular season with the league's top-ranked defense, a unit that allowed only 278.4 yards per game. Without having Carter on the field, Philadelphia surrendered back-to-back touchdown drives and then back-to-back field-goal drives in the first half of Thursday's contest.

One can only guess what the Dallas offense would've achieved had the game not been delayed for nearly an hour when the Eagles held a 24-20 advantage with 4:44 left in the third quarter because of lightning in the area.