The Eagles put their faith in Jalen Carter. They can only hope their risk is worth the reward

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Jalen Hurts offered a rare speck of detail into his personal life when he said his wife stuck a $5 bill into his backpack ahead of his first day of training camp.

Just a bit of an inside joke between the power couple.

Hurts skipped spending it on a vending machine snack and went straight to the Philadelphia Eagles player who might never need the smallest of loans.

“I took that $5 bill and I went and gave it to Jalen Carter, and I smacked it on his chest. And I said, ‘Let me put five on top of that,’” Hurts said.

Carter kept the petty cash. The richest of the rich can always use small bills, even as the 25-year-old Carter signed the richest deal for a defensive tackle in NFL history.

The Eagles signed Carter this week to a four-year extension that included $106 million guaranteed through the 2031 season.

Make that $106,000,005.

“I said if he would’ve signed it, it’d probably be worth $500," Carter said. "I got it held. It’s at the house, though. I literally held it all day. It fell out of my pockets with teammates giving it to me. It was a funny moment, though.”

Carter was selected ninth overall in the 2023 draft and has been unstoppable for a defense that spurred the Eagles to a Super Bowl championship two seasons ago. He had three sacks, 12 quarterback hits and 33 tackles last season for the NFC East champions and has paired with former Georgia teammate Jordan Davis — who signed a three-year, $65 million guaranteed contract extension in March — to form a formidable defensive front.

“We felt like that was one of the strengths of our team and we wanted that to be one of the strengths of our team going forward,” Eagles general manager Howie Roseman said. “The defensive tackle position in the league, in college football, it’s a deficient position. It’s hard to find guys like that and we feel like it was a priority.”

Roseman and the Eagles believe their faith in Carter was rewarded and that he has blossomed into a player of high value on the field. They must hope he continues to make headlines only for his play.

Carter's career biography will always include his involvement at Georgia in a crash that killed a teammate, offensive lineman Devin Willock, and a Georgia recruiting staffer, Chandler LeCroy.

Carter was given one year of probation and fined $1,000 after pleading no contest to misdemeanor charges of reckless driving and racing related to the wreck.

On the field, Carter spoiled the Eagles' opening night ceremony of their Super Bowl win when he spit on Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott. Carter was fined the equivalent of his game check for Week 1 because the NFL considered the punishment a one-game suspension with time served. The two-time Pro Bowler was penalized for unsportsmanlike conduct before the first snap from scrimmage.

He was penalized three times in 2024 for unnecessary roughness and was benched to start a game in a disciplinary move by coach Nick Sirianni. Carter also was fined $17,445 that season for an open-handed blow to the head of Washington Commanders center Tyler Biadasz in the NFC championship game.

He's got the cash now to cover any more damages, if necessary.

Only pro athletes and entertainers usually get that kind of leeway to mess up and still make massive money.

“Like anyone, when you’re 25 years old, you’re still growing as a person and as a player,” Roseman said.

Carter has made the most of his extra chances professionally and will anchor defensive coordinator Vic Fangio's line that stands to rank among the best of the NFL.

He has leaned on his “big brother” in Davis ever since they were teammates and 2021 national champions at Georgia.

The Eagles moved up two spots to get Davis in the 2022 draft — the same night they traded with Tennessee for wide receiver A.J. Brown — and watched him develop into an integral part of Philadelphia’s defensive line. A run-stuffer in the interior, Davis had a career-high 4 1/2 sacks last season with nine tackles for loss and six quarterback hits.

“Selfishly, I wanted to keep all the Georgia guys together," Davis said.

Selfishly, Eagles fans want to keep their championship core together.

The Eagles do, too, and they all could get their wish under one of Roseman's core commandments in building a roster: draft, develop, sign to extensions.

With Carter and Davis locked up under lucrative deals, the Eagles could face a similar situation next offseason with Quinyon Mitchell, Cooper DeJean and Jalyx Hunt all on deck for long-term deals.

DeJean is one of the best defensive backs in the NFL and the 2024 second-round pick out of Iowa still has two more seasons ahead before he is eligible for free agency.

As history shows, Roseman won't let contract issues linger beyond next season on players he truly values. Take a look around at the select well-heeled fans allowed at Eagles training camp, and DeJean's No. 33 jersey or T-shirt were among the most popular choices for fans to wear, especially for young kids and teenagers.

DeJean forever stamped himself in Eagles history when he picked off Kansas City's Patrick Mahomes' pass and returned it 38 yards for a touchdown in their Super Bowl victory.

DeJean can take it to the house again next offseason with an extension that would make him among the highest paid cornerbacks in the NFL.

Oh, and Eagles fans can keep their DeJean merchandise.

“I would say to our fans, if you’re wearing a jersey with some of those guys with those names on the back,” Roseman said, “we fully intend for those guys to be here on the long term.”

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Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver Makai Lemon (9) runs a drill with wide receiver Samori Toure (46) during practice at the team's NFL football training camp in Philadelphia, Wednesday, July 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Chris Szagola)

Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts (1) runs a drill during practice at the team's NFL football training camp in Philadelphia, Wednesday, July 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Chris Szagola)

Philadelphia Eagles running back Saquon Barkley (26) runs a drill during practice at the team's NFL football training camp in Philadelphia, Wednesday, July 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Chris Szagola)

Philadelphia Eagles wide receivers Makai Lemon (9) and Hollywood Brown (0) look on during practice at the team's NFL football training camp in Philadelphia, Wednesday, July 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Chris Szagola)

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are rebounding Thursday after Microsoft leaped on hopes that its big spending on AI is translating into profits, while computer-chip companies clawed back some of their sharp recent losses.

The S&P 500 rallied 1.3% and recovered two-thirds of its drop from the prior day, which was its worst in seven weeks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 450 points, or 0.9% as of 12:50 p.m. Eastern time. The Nasdaq composite, which is full of artificial-intelligence stocks, jumped 2.3% a day after it fell 9.8% below its record set last month.

Microsoft led the way and leaped 16.3% after reporting a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Growth was strong for its Azure cloud business, and CEO Satya Nadella said it reflects how customers are using Microsoft to move into AI.

Perhaps just as importantly for Wall Street, Microsoft did not announce a big increase in how much it plans to spend on AI investments, something that several other Big Tech rivals have done. Worries are high that such spending is eating into companies’ cash flows and may not ultimately be worth it if AI does not produce as much productivity and profits as promised.

Meta Platforms helped demonstrate such fears after falling 9.5%. The parent company of Facebook and Instagram reported a weaker profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected, even though it made slightly more in revenue than expected. It also raised the lower end of its forecasted range for spending on investments this year.

Companies involved in the making of the computer memory and processors that such “hyperscalers” are buying rose Thursday, recovering some of the big losses they’ve taken on worries that their stock prices shot too high in the euphoria around AI.

Micron Technology jumped 16%, for example, to trim its loss for the week to 6.9%. It was one of the strongest forces lifting the S&P 500 after Microsoft.

Lam Research, a supplier to the semiconductor industry, soared 17.6% after reporting stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Chip giant Advanced Micro Devices rallied 12.9%.

In the bond market, longer-term Treasury yields held a bit steadier following their sharp accelerations Wednesday. They had jumped after the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Kevin Warsh, gave few clues about what the central bank will do with interest rates to combat the painfully high inflation that continues to hurt the country.

Higher rates could keep a lid on inflation, but they can also slow the economy and undercut prices for stocks and other investments.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.66% from 4.67% late Wednesday. The 30-year Treasury yield held steady at 5.20%, a day after it shot up from 5.09%. They move with investors’ expectations for inflation and economic growth in upcoming years.

Warsh reaffirmed on Wednesday the Fed wants to get inflation back down to 2%, even though the central bank decided not to raise interest rates despite its remaining higher than that. He also implied the bond market may already be doing some of the Fed’s work to restrain inflation, and he pointed to how yields have climbed since the central bank’s last meeting six weeks earlier.

That leaves investors questioning whether the Fed is prepared to act if inflation worsens, or whether it is relying on financial markets to achieve the same outcome, according to Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management.

“If investors conclude that the latter is true, the credibility of the Fed’s inflation-fighting commitment could come under increasing scrutiny. Arguably, it already is.”

President Donald Trump, who nominated Warsh to lead the Fed, has argued for lower interest rates even though they could cause inflation to accelerate.

Reports released Thursday suggested the U.S. economy’s growth slowed by more during the spring than economists expected. A measure of Inflation, meanwhile, remained worse last month than the Federal Reserve’s target, but it slowed from May.

In the oil market, prices eased back.

Brent crude, the international standard, fell 1.2% to $87.01 per barrel. It had swung as low as $72 early this month and as high as $102 last week on uncertainty about whether the United States and Iran could reach a deal to allow oil tankers to move freely again from the Middle East to customers worldwide.

In stock markets worldwide, indexes rose in Europe following a mixed finish in Asia. South Korea's Kospi fell 1.2%, and France's CAC 40 rose 0.9% for two of the world's bigger moves.

Seoul's market has been at the center of the huge recent moves for AI stocks because it's dominated by two tech titans, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. After more than doubling through this year's first six months, the Kospi has plunged 34% so far in July.

Its drop on Thursday came as Samsung Electronics dipped 0.7%. The tech giant reported a record profit for the spring and said demand for its chips continues to outpace supply, but its earnings nevertheless fell shy of analysts' high expectations.

AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Matt Ott contributed to this report.

FILE - People pass the New York Stock Exchange on May 28, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan, File)

FILE - The New York Stock Exchange is seen in New York, Thursday, March 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)

A screen shows the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics Co. stock price at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, July 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Currency traders work at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, July 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

A currency trader passes by a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, July 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Currency traders watch monitors near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, July 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

A currency trader talks on the phone at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, July 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)