Jalen Carter was fired up on the sidelines as the Philadelphia Eagles were set to seal their 15-12 victory over the New Orleans Saints. Earlier in the game, Carter got involved in a sideline altercation with Saints safety Tyrann Mathieu after Reed Blankenship's interception capped a dominant defensive performance by the Eagles.
The altercation got so heated that Carter had to be held back by Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni and defensive line coach Clint Hurtt. A team captain on the Saints, Mathieu regretted his role in the altercation and how it escalated.
"It's an intense game and emotions get high," Mathieu said after the game, via a transcript provided by the Saints. Obviously, it was a one-point game for a while there. Defensively, obviously, we want to defend our home field. Me and Latt (Marshon Lattimore), we should never go to those guys' sideline. So, we will learn from that.
"It happens to all of us, where emotions get the best of us. We didn't really hear it much from those guys all game until they went up at the end. We will just be looking forward to playing again against those guys, hopefully."
Carter wasn't asked out the altercation and what led to his shouting match with Mathieu and Lattimore, but the Eagles defense did prove a point in Sunday's win over the Saints. The Eagles defense held the Saints to 219 yards and 4.0 yards per play, after the Saints averaged 405.5 yards per game and 6.9 yards per play in the first two games. New Orleans averaged 44.5 points per game heading into the contest, but had just 12 on Sunday.
The Eagles had the league's worst run defense in terms of yards per carry (6.4) heading into Sunday. They held the Saints to 3.1 yards per carry. For all the talk the defense heard regarding their play, Carter -- who had four pressures, a quarterback hit, and two passes defensed -- wanted to send a message.
"Everybody was sick of it," Carter said, via a transcript provided by the Eagles. "They might be saying me and Jordan's [Davis] name, but they were also saying … everybody's name. We got tired of it. We didn't want to have it three weeks in a row.
"We wanted to make a big change early. We didn't want to wait till later on, where it would be the playoffs. Nah, we're trying to show we're here right now."
Sideline altercation aside, Carter wanted to make a statement.