The play didn't seem to add up to much last Saturday night when Giants QB Russell Wilson connected with RB Devin Singletary in the flat along the left sideline. Singletary was wide open. Then he wasn't. The play went for a single yard because of the quick reaction of Jets nickel cornerback Michael Carter II.
It was only one play in the second preseason game, but the Green & White's DC Steve Wilks took note of it that night and again on Wednesday.
"Mike, we were talking about him as a staff the other day, and I think he's had an outstanding camp," Wilks said. "When you look at everything that we asked that position to do, he is a linebacker in the run game, does an outstanding job for us fitting the run and understanding blocking schemes, pull schemes, getting over the top, and then his ability to be able to cover man to man.
"And you saw that the other night with the fade ball down the sideline, and his ability to be able to understand zone concepts and route progressions. I'm excited about where he is right now. He's definitely, I tell people all the time, as much as we get 11 personnel, he's a star in this defense, and he's doing a tremendous job."
When he was selected by the Jets out of Duke in the fifth round (No. 154 overall) of the 2021 NFL Draft, MCII, 26, wasn't even the only Michael Carter drafted that year. But here he is, the fifth-round pick getting ready for his fifth season in a key position at slot cornerback. He may be small in stature (5-10) and heft (184), but in a game that prizes physicality and violence, MCII has shown he plays the game with his smarts.
MCII, along with DT Quinnen Williams and LB Jamien Sherwood, are the longest-tenured players on the Jets' defense. Carter, who signed a contract extension in the offseason, was asked about a practice earlier this week that was run by the players themselves.
"It was nothing crazy, just like a players' walkthrough type thing, and it was cool to really run that ourselves and be accountable totally because we were out there making the calls and kind of going off based off what we saw," Carter said. "And so I think the great teams are player-led teams, and the players are accountable. And we understand what the standard is and how we need to get things done and how things should operate. And so we got a chance to go out there and kind of prove it for the first time, just it being us."
After emerging as a linchpin in the Jets' defense his first three seasons, his 2024 season was hindered first by an ankle injury in training camp and then a herniated disc in his back sustained during warmups before the Green & White faced Minnesota in London. He missed the next two games, then two more games toward the end of the season and overall played 32% of the snaps on defense over 13 games.
"The good thing about him, now he's healthy, and he has twitch, he's tough," Glenn said earlier in the summer. "He understands the nickel position, and once you start to play that position, you have to start to understand exactly what's going on with the front, so you just can be a guy that's out on the edge and, listen, I got my guy. I mean, there is gap integrity that you have to understand.
"Your ability to cover has to be on point, so not only are you acting as a DB, but you also have to act as a linebacker, too, because there are certain situations where you could have turbo motion, they can get you bumping to the paint, and you have to operate as a linebacker. So, he does a really good job of that, and he's extremely smart also. So, to have a guy with the skill set that he has and that's extremely smart, like those are the type of guys you really want in that nickel spot, so he's doing a good job for us."
High praise coming from Glenn, a guy who was a tough and heady cornerback who joined the Jets in 1994 and has returned to lead the organization. He and Wilks have brought along their defensive concepts, which the players have been absorbing and adjusting to since OTAs in the spring.
"It's a different defense," Carter said. "But you know, there's elements of similarities -- you have man, Cover 3 and then coverages, all those coverages down the line. So I say it's more of the same, but with those different tweaks, the individual tweaks we do, that Wilks does and we do in our room, that's just in our room. That's just what we do."
And what Carter does, he does extremely well.
