Should the Eagles exercise their fifth-year options for Jalen Carter and Nolan Smith?

The Eagles will have decisions to make on exercising fifth-year options for iDL Jalen Carter, EDGE Nolan Smith. What are the chances they'll pick up options on both?

By Jimmy Kempski
PhillyVoice Staff

Eric Hartline/Imagn Images

Eagles iDL Jalen Carter

The Philadelphia Eagles have decisions to make on two players eligible to have their fifth-year options picked up by the team. They are DT Jalen Carter and EDGE Nolan Smith, who were both selected in the first round of the 2023 draft. 

The deadline to pick up those options is May 1, so this isn't anything urgent, but let's go ahead and give a refresher on how fifth-year options work, and whether the Eagles are likely to use them on these two players.

What is the fifth-year option?

To begin, Carter and Smith are both under contract in 2026. The decision to pick up their fifth-year options would be for the 2027 season.

Players selected in the first round of the draft who have completed their third year in the league are eligible to have a fifth year added onto their contract by their team. It typically isn't cheap, and there are four pay tiers for fifth-year options, as laid out by OverTheCap:

• Tier 1 (Basic): Players who do not meet any of the requirements below will be eligible for a fifth-year base salary calculated from the average of the 3rd to 25th highest salaries at their position over the past five seasons.

• Tier 2 (Playtime): These players will be eligible for a fifth-year base salary calculated from the average of the 3rd to 20th highest salaries at their position over the past five seasons, provided that their snap counts over their first three seasons meet one of the following three criteria:

1. 75% or greater in two of their first three seasons.

2. An average of 75% or greater over all three seasons.

3. 50% or greater over all three seasons.

• Tier 3 (One Pro Bowl): Players who are named to exactly one Pro Bowl on the original ballot (not as an alternate) will be eligible for a fifth-year base salary equal to the transition tender at their position.

• Tier 4 (Multiple Pro Bowls): Players who are named to two or three Pro Bowls on the original ballot (not as an alternate) will be eligible for a fifth-year base salary equal to the franchise tender at their position.

OverTheCap's projected tiers for Carter and Smith are as follows:

Carter has made two Pro Bowls, so he qualifies for Tier 4 status. Smith has not made a Pro Bowl, and has not hit play time benchmarks, so he's stuck in Tier 1.

Fifth-year options become fully guaranteed as soon as teams exercise them. It's worth quickly noting that all non-guaranteed salary in the player's fourth season also becomes fully guaranteed. Before the new 2020 Collective Bargaining Agreement, they were only guaranteed for injury. Since that change, the utilization of fifth-year options around the league has decreased.

Since the change to the Collective Bargaining Agreement, the only time the Eagles have exercised their fifth-year option was with Jordan Davis, last offseason. Technically, they kinda-sorta also exercised DeVonta Smith's fifth-year option and included that as part of his contract extension two offseasons ago. They declined to exercise fifth year options on Jahan Dotson and Andre Dillard. They also traded Jalen Reagor and Kenny Pickett before needing to make the obvious decisions not to exercise their fifth-year options.

• 2022: Andre Dillard ❌
• 2023: Jalen Reagor ❌ (traded)
• 2024: DeVonta Smith ✅ (extension)
• 2025: Jordan Davis ✅
• 2025: Jahan Dotson ❌
• 2025: Kenny Pickett ❌ (traded)

Jalen Carter (fifth year option projected at $26.3 million)

Carter is arguably the Eagles' most talented player. Opposing offenses must game plan for him first and foremost when facing the Eagles' defense. He is a candidate to get a massive contract extension this offseason, and if so, the Eagles could try to build his fifth-year option into a new deal, like they did with DeVonta Smith a couple years ago.

#JimmyVerdict: We don't need to spend a lot of time on Carter here. If the Eagles do not get a contract extension done with Carter by May 1, it will be a no-brainer to exercise his fifth-year option. ✅

Nolan Smith (fifth year option projected at $15.4 million)

Smith had a quiet rookie season in 2023 and his second season in 2024 got off to a slow start. However, the light seemed to come on for him after the Week 5 bye in 2024. In the 15 games he played from October on, Smith had 10.5 sacks, a pair of forced fumbles, and he did a lot of the dirty work in the defense like taking on pulling guards and burying them. He also led the NFL with four postseason sacks.

Smith entered 2025 as a budding star, and the Eagles' top edge defender. However, he did not have the season that he or the Eagles were hoping for, as he missed five games after aggravating a triceps injury that he suffered in the previous year's Super Bowl. He was also on a pitch count upon his return.

Smith will presumably be healthy to begin next season, and the Eagles will hope he picks up where he left off in 2024. The promise he showed in 2024 will likely be enough for the Eagles to exercise his fifth-year option. 

The Eagles have two other starting-caliber edge defenders on the roster in Jaelan Phillips and Jalyx Hunt. Phillips is a free agent this offseason. Hunt is two years into his four-year rookie contract, and will be eligible for a contract extension after next season. 

If the Eagles lose Phillips to some other team in March, picking up Smith's fifth-year option will be a very easy decision. If they are able re-sign Phillips to a long-term extension, I believe they will still pick up Smith's fifth-year option. The question going forward in that scenario then just becomes a matter of how many edge defenders they can afford to pay.

• If they believe they can pay good money to three edge defenders, then it's an easy decision to exercise Smith's fifth-year option.

• If they don't think they can pay three edge defenders good money, they can buy more time on choosing which players to retain by exercising Smith's fifth-year option, as both Smith and Hunt would be under the team's control through the 2027 season.

#JimmyVerdict: Exercise it. ✅

https://www.phillyvoice.com/should-eagles-exercise-their-fifth-year-options-jalen-carter-and-nolan-smith/

If they can work out a deal with Carter then I think they should. Maybe they want to buy themselves another year though? Move some cap around this year and next to buy themselves more space and have the cap go up again next year?

Nolan though? Hmm I’m not sure. He’s good but I’m not sure he’s going to be a top edge. He has absolutely flashed but he’s been inconsistent and he has struggled with injuries. But because he’s in tier 1 the number isn’t so bad?

Didn't they do a bunch of moves last offseason in anticipation of signing Carter to a mega deal? Then his play declines and he's injured last season

On 2/16/2026 at 3:19 PM, Mike030270 said:

Didn't they do a bunch of moves last offseason in anticipation of signing Carter to a mega deal? Then his play declines and he's injured last season

Yeah that’s how I recall it bud! They didn’t make moves they perhaps wanted to and they told us they were saving money for the future because they knew they had some big defensive contracts on the horizon. But then of course Carter wasn’t quite the same, had injuries and had the nonsense of his own doing the opening night.