Jets cornerback Michael Carter II has a simple answer when asked about his goals for the 2025 season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cJust be available,\u201d Carter said after practice Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This is understandable considering a frustrating 2024 season saw Carter deal with ankle and back injuries, causing him to miss four games and play sparingly in six others. <\/p>\n
Now, Carter is back to full health and ready to bounce back.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That starts with playing every game this year. Carter established himself as one of the best nickel corners in the NFL over his first three years. The Jets rewarded him before last season with a three-year, $30.75 million contract extension<\/a>. Then, the injuries hit. <\/p>\n He suffered a high right ankle sprain in training camp that limited him in the first five weeks of the season. Then, a herniated disc in his back knocked him out of almost three games. He returned but was never quite the same player.\u00a0<\/p>\n Carter enters 2025 trying to regain the form that made the Jets happy to pay him last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cUltimately, I just want to be productive,\u201d Carter said. \u201cI want to be All-Pro. That will come with me being myself and me playing at the level that I do, just being able to trust my teammates and them being able to trust me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The back injury was a weird one. Carter first felt pain down his right leg during warmups before the Jets\u2019 Week 5 game against the Vikings in London. He played one snap in the game but could not go on. The Jets initially believed it was a hamstring injury. When an MRI showed his hamstring was fine, Carter returned to the hospital to get imaging on his back. That is when the herniated disc was found.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jets cornerback Michael Carter II looks on during practice Bill Kostroun\/New York Post<\/p>\n Carter missed the next two games and returned against the Patriots in New England. But his comeback was short-lived.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cEverything was good and I ended up making a tackle where I got bent in an odd way and that restarted everything,\u201d Carter said. \u201cIt just reoccurred from there. That was super frustrating. I had to come to a place of finding peace with it and just understanding that in order to get better, I have to do this, this and this in the offseason.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n