Report: Georgia DT Jalen Carter visits with Chicago Bears on Monday
Georgia defensive tackle Jalen Carter is reportedly visiting with the Bears on Monday.
Carter is at Halas Hall in Lake Forest, according to ESPN's Adam Schefter, for his second NFL visit. He previously visited the Philadelphia Eagles. According to Carter's agent Drew Rosenhaus, Carter is turning down visit requests from teams drafting outside the top 10 picks.
"I'm confident Jalen will go in the top 10," Rosenhaus told Schefter. "He's a good person, a family man, loves football and is a generational talent."
The Bears currently hold the No. 9 overall pick after trading the draft's top pick to the Carolina Panthers last month.
The Bears always planned to bring Carter in for a visit. The 21-year-old was a stud up front for the national champion Bulldogs last season. He looked like a lock to be a top-five pick up until the NFL Scouting Combine, when news spread of his involvement in a January fatal crash that killed one of his teammates and a Georgia football staff member.
On March 1, during the combine, Carter was charged with reckless driving and racing. He left Indianapolis that day to return to Georgia. Later in the month he pleaded no contest to those misdemeanor charges in a deal with Athens-Clarke County prosecutors and was handed 12 months probation, a $1,000 fine and community service time.
A few weeks after the combine, Carter appeared to struggle through his Pro Day workout and weighed in nine pounds heavier than he had been two weeks earlier.
All in all, a player who looked like a shoo-in for a top five pick now faces the possibility of seeing his draft stock plummet when the first round begins April 27.
Bears general manager Ryan Poles, who did attend Carter's pro day last month, always intended to have Carter in for a visit. NFL teams are allowed to have up to 30 players visit their facility ahead of the draft.
"We'll bring him [in], talk to him and get to know him even better," Poles said on March 16. "Some point in mid-April, we'll sit down and see how we want to handle it."
The in-person visits are highly valuable for NFL teams. While they are allowed to interview countless prospects at the combine, those interviews are typically only 15 minutes. An in-person visit will give Poles, head coach Matt Eberflus and the rest of the staff an opportunity to sit down with Carter and ask him questions for an extended period of time.
Prior to his legal troubles, the prospect of Carter dropping all the way to No. 9 seemed unlikely. Now, though, anything is possible. The Bears have a need along the defensive line and Carter could certainly help there. They need to make a determination if drafting Carter - unquestionably a great football player in college - is worth the off-the-field risk.
By NFL standards, two misdemeanors are relatively minor offenses. Teams have certainly ignored far worse. But the optics of leaving the scene of a crash where two people died could raise serious character concerns.
Declining interviews from teams outside the top 10 is a curious choice for Carter and Rosenhaus. He is essentially turning down job interviews from the 22 other NFL teams. Those 22 other teams always have the option to trade up into the top 10, but would they do that for a player they didn't meet with? It's certainly a risk, especially if those top 10 teams decide to pass on him.