Jalen Carter and Jon Feliciano’s vile NFL trash talking allegations, explained

The ink is barely dry on the Super Bowl and already a new story is being written in the NFL. This one involves 49ers guard Jon Feliciano, Eagles defensive tackle Jalen Carter — and a back-and-forth over allegations of vile trash talk, which is reaching all the way to the league offices.

It all started Monday, when Feliciano took to Twitter to respond to a video of one of the Super Bowl’s pivotal plays, which was blaming 49ers offensive linemen Colton McKivitz for a missed block that led to a hurried pass from Brock Purdy.

Whether the analysis of the original tweet was wrong of not, Feliciano decided to get involved to defend his teammate by throwing another under the bus. He didn’t leave it here either. When pressed about his comment he firmly took aim at second year guard Spencer Buford.

Now things are really awkward, because Buford wakes up and sees his teammate putting him on blast and ostensibly blaming the Super Bowl loss on his missed block. This is heightened by the fact that Buford was the one who stepped in and took Feliciano’s place after he was injured in the game.

Feliciano, realizing what he did was messed up, apologized for throwing his teammate under the bus.

For what it’s worth, Buford has clarified that he and Feliciano have cleared the air and there’s no hard feelings. However, this exchange over the play is what ignited the whole drama between Feliciano and Jalen Carter.

Aggregator accounts on Twitter were quick to jump on Feliciano calling out Buford, and upon seeing Feliciano blame the moment on his emotions, Carter was annoyed. The Eagles lineman went to Instagram to post a story about the back-and-forth on the Niners, while also claiming that Feliciano had trash talked him about the death of his teammate during their game on December 3.

Carter is referring to the death of Devin Willock, which occurred in 2023 as a result of a traffic accident. It was later found that Carter was involved, street racing Georgia football staffer Chandler LeCroy. LeCroy lost control of her vehicle, hit two utility poles, and died along with Willock in the incident.

As a result Carter was charged with reckless driving and street racing, which he pled no contest to — and subsequently punished for. It was a monumentally stupid incident, one which will follow Carter forever, but that doesn’t mean it should be fodder for trash talk during a game.

Now, with Carter on the record saying that Feliciano crossed the line, the 49ers lineman fired back, asserting that Carter started it by saying things that managed to be even worse than invoking the name of a dead teammate.

Feliciano added:

In addition to these tweets, Feliciano shared a screenshot of a prior story from Carter which included a photo of Feliciano and his children — which could easily be interpreted as a thinly-veiled threat considering their run-in on the field. Feliciano claims he already opened a complaint against Carter with the NFL before this latest incident, essentially asserting that Carter had been stalking him since their game on December 3.

We’re left with a he-said-he-said argument here, but with a twist. Obvious the back-and-forth that happened during the 49ers-Eagles game is disgusting on both sides if we assume Feliciano and Carter are equally telling the truth, but the wrinkle here is Feliciano’s claim that he was already in contact with the NFL over Carter’s off-field actions prior to their latest run in. That certainly changes the tone of how we can perceive this incident.

The NFL likes to handle issues like this internally, but now both players have gone public it’s unclear if they’ll be able to keep it under wraps. Obviously it’s disgusting that Feliciano would feel the need to discuss the death of an innocent person to get under Carter’s skin, but by the same token it’s so far beyond the pale to bring up someone’s children as part of trash talking.

Either way, now you know how this whole situation starter and where it currently stands. We wait to see if Carter with further clarify his side of the story, or if the NFL makes a statement about it all.