What The Eagles Fifth-Year Options Look Like For Jalen Carter, Nolan Smith

The Eagles have two fifth-year options to evaluate once again – and both come with their own challenges.

The increased value of a first-round pick is the team’s ability to pick up a fifth-year option for the player to ensure they can keep top players for at least five years – something not available to players drafted in any subsequent round.

First up for the Eagles is Jalen Carter.

Carter just missed time for a significant portion of this past season with shoulder surgery and that marks the first extended absence of his NFL career. It coincides with a season where he got ejected on the first play of the game in week one for spitting.

Due to the missed time, 2025 was Carter’s lowest-stat-total season since coming to the NFL, with just three sacks and 33 tackles to go with no turnovers. His lone area of improved statistics was batted passes.

Carter had taken a step in productivity in 2024 and it would seem like a slam dunk to pick up the fifth-year option – but that number is estimated to be up to $26.7 million for one season. That’s a massive cap hit, especially for a guy just coming off major injury to both shoulders and who seemingly has not matured much since joining the team.

It wouldn’t be a surprise to see the Eagles decline the option due to the massive price tag as they look to push that cap hit out through multiple years with a longer-term extension, but it’ll be a tougher decision to make than if his fifth-year option was more in line with what Jordan Davis’ option for next year that the team accepted (about $13 million) had been.

For reference, Milton Williams left the Eagles last year for a $26 million/year contract – that currently has him as the second highest paid DT in football behind Chris Jones, and the estimate for Carter’s fifth-year option has him above that number.

Nolan Smith would be the second option they’ll have to evaluate.

Smith’s option comes in estimated around $19 million. That’s around what Josh Sweat got when he left the Eagles and above the annual value of the deals for players like Bradley Chubb, Khalil Mack, Demarcus Lawrence, Haason Reddick, Joey Bosa, Chase Young, and others.

That makes it a harder to accept deal given Smith really never flashed at all this season.

Following a 2024 campaign in which he put up 6.5 sacks and 42 tackles in addition to a strong playoff run, Smith’s name was rarely called in 2025 as he had just three sacks and only 31 tackles for an edge group that overall performed weaker and could have used someone stepping up more.

Still, the Eagles see his potential and will likely explore an extension – it may just depend on if they believe he’ll reach that potential within the next two years whether or not they decide to pull the trigger on that fifth-year option.