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During the bye week, the Eagles have added more depth to their cornerback room, sending wide receiver John Metchie and a 2027 sixth-round pick to the New York Jets for Michael Carter II and a 2027 seventh-round pick. Here’s everything you need to know about the Eagles’ latest addition… Carter’s family roots In a New York Jets YouTube video, Carter reflected on his family. He described them as loving, structured, and disciplined. The 26-year-old grew up being competitive with his fraternal twin sister. “It was competitive because at one point in time she was taller than me, she was faster than I was, so it was competitive,” Carter said. “We got a little bit of that twin telepathy stuff where we’re around each other for a while, we kind of know what’s going on and give each other that look and things like that. In certain situations, we’ve had some competitive times growing up.” » READ MORE: Eagles priorities during the bye week According to the video, Carter’s father is also a lieutenant and senior leader of the Atlanta Police Department SWAT team. Growing up under him brought a lot of structure to Carter’s life. “My dad plays sports, he was an athlete,” Carter said. “I’ve always been drawn to him and what he’s liked to do. Just that hard work and what it takes to be good at something — whether it was in his career path and kind of transferring into how I was doing at school and in sports. For one, school always came first. If I wasn’t doing A’s and B’s in school, there wouldn’t be any sports.” Wanting to quit football Carter had a surprising answer when he was asked if there was anything that stood out to him when he first started playing football. “It was probably that I didn’t want to play,” Carter said. Carter started playing football when he was nine years old. His first memory came from his first practice with pads. His team set up for the Oklahoma drill and at the time, he wasn’t sure how to correctly tackle. “They were like just line up and go tackle,” Carter said. “I ended up making the tackle but dude ran straight through my chest. So, it was kind of one of those where you just fall back and you tackle the dude. You know, I was crying and stuff and I took all my stuff off. My dad took me over to the side and was consoling me like ‘You’re going to be alright,’ and all this stuff. “And then after a while he looked at me like ‘You good, you feeling better?’ And I was like ‘It don’t hurt no more.’ And then he was like ‘Alright, go back out there. If you don’t want to play no more after this year, you can stop playing football. But, I already paid for it and we don’t quit when we start things.’ … After that year I took a lot of liking and a lot of love for the game.” Duke roots Carter was a three-star recruit coming out of South Paulding High School and was listed as the No. 43 cornerback in the nation by Rivals.com. He eventually committed to Duke in 2016. “You can get anybody to go to Duke,” Carter said. “It’s such a special campus, special place. … Football wise, I felt like I had an opportunity to go and play early. I always wanted to be a true freshman and travel and just experience that — even if I was just playing special teams. I just always wanted to go to all these different stadiums and just be a part of that every Saturday and feel like a college football. As a freshman, I feel like I made an impact early on. That’s why I chose Duke, ultimately.” During his time at Duke, Carter played in 46 career games (36 starts), recorded 35 tackles, 1.5 sacks, four INTs, one forced fumble, and one fumble recovery. During his sophomore and junior years, when he switched between playing corner and safety, he won Duke’s Willis Aldridge Award for best defensive back. His message from God It wasn’t until his sophomore year that Carter started to believe he would make it into the NFL. However, his first day on campus he got a special message that he remembers to this day. “We go to this Walmart near campus and we’re just buying snacks and different supplies and stuff like that,” Carter said. “And this lady comes up to us and I’ve never seen her again since this day. She comes up to us and asks ‘Do you play football?’ And I was like ‘Yeah.’ She’s like ‘You play at Duke?’ And I was like ‘Yeah.’ … She’s like ‘God told me to tell you that you would play in the NFL one day.’ So, that was huge for me. And that helped me a lot to stay focused on that and just appreciate everything how God put me in these positions. He’s blessed me a lot. That’s kind of like my testimony, right there.” New York to Philly The Jets selected Carter in the fifth round of the 2021 NFL draft. This season, he’s played in five games, starting four, recording two passes defended, 14 tackles, including one tackle for loss. Throughout his five seasons with the Jets, he has recorded two interceptions, 223 total tackles, and 26 passes defended.
