Tariq
Carpenter.
Tariq
Carpenter.
Georgia Tech
"A 225-pound safety with linebacker arms and a 39-inch vertical who started forty-one games at Georgia Tech without ever learning to cover, then lasted seventeen NFL games before an arrest closed the door."Pre-draft read
A rangy, long-levered strong safety built more like a linebacker than a defensive back. At 6-2 1/4 and 225 pounds with 33 3/8-inch arms, a 39-inch vertical and an 11-4 broad jump, Carpenter was Georgia Tech's downhill presence in the box, a tackler who filled the alley and a body who could cover kicks the moment he arrived in a locker room.
The coverage half of the job never caught up. Four interceptions and 18 career pass breakups across five seasons is thin for a safety who started 41 games, and he lacks the short-area quickness to mirror slot receivers or flip his hips against route breaks. His 4.52 speed plays in a straight line, which is why NFL teams saw a linebacker conversion and a special teams role instead of a deep defender.
A defense that hides its safeties in single-gap run support and lets a converted linebacker play dime against heavy personnel.
Year 1: core four-phase special teams player. Ceiling: a dime linebacker who handles 15 defensive snaps against 12 personnel.
A two-high system that asks him to play the deep half or match tight ends up the seam, exactly the assignments his hips cannot execute.
Every evaluation agreed his roster value started on teams and ended there.
Tariq Carpenter: Georgia Tech safety 2020 highlights
His 2020 tape, including the 43-yard interception return against Duke.
Georgia Tech DB Tariq Carpenter top plays 2018
The breakout redshirt freshman year that made him a fixture in the Tech secondary.
Packers Tariq Carpenter role on defense
Green Bay camp coverage of how a converted safety was being used as a rookie.
Carpenter came out of Long County High School in Ludowici, Georgia, a small-town recruit who stayed in state and spent five seasons at Georgia Tech. His freshman year in 2017 was a redshirt-adjacent cameo, and then he became a fixture: by the time he finished he had appeared in 52 games, including 50 straight to close his career, with 41 career starts, all of them at safety.
The production came in waves. As a redshirt freshman in 2018 he broke through with 55 tackles and two interceptions, then led all Georgia Tech defensive backs and finished third on the team in 2019 with 62 stops in 11 games. The pandemic season of 2020 cost him time to offseason injuries, but he still played all 10 games with nine starts, 39 tackles, an interception he returned 43 yards against Duke, and six pass breakups.
He used the extra COVID year and came back for 2021, playing all 12 games with nine starts and posting a career-high 65 tackles, fifth on the team, including 13 in a 14-8 loss at No. 6 Clemson and nine at No. 6 Notre Dame. What he did not do was play the ball: two pass breakups and no interceptions in his final year confirmed the read that the size and leaping ability were NFL-caliber and the coverage instincts were not.
- 01
Exceptional length and explosion for a safety
33 3/8-inch arms, a 39-inch vertical and an 11-4 broad jump at 225 pounds.
- 02
Durable and available
52 games in five seasons, 50 of them consecutive, with 41 career starts all at the same position.
- 03
Volume tackler in the box
65 stops as a senior and 62 as a junior, including a 13-tackle afternoon at No. 6 Clemson.
- 04
Special teams profile is immediate
the frame, speed and willingness to run down kicks were the clearest NFL trait on his tape.
- 05
Positional versatility to convert
teams evaluated him as a linebacker or dime body, not strictly as a deep safety.
- 01
Cannot cover in space
the hip flexibility and short-area quickness are not there to mirror slots or carry routes vertically.
- 02
Minimal ball production
four interceptions and 18 pass breakups across 52 games is light for a five-year starting safety.
- 03
Straight-line speed only
a 4.46 shuttle and 7.50 three-cone flag the change of direction that his forty time hides.
- 04
No defined NFL position
safety-to-linebacker converts have to win a roster spot on teams every year with no natural home.
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Georgia Tech | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2018 | Georgia Tech | 13 | 55 | 0 | 2 | 5 | 1 |
| 2019 | Georgia Tech | 11 | 62 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 1 |
| 2020 | Georgia Tech | 10 | 39 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 0 |
| 2021 | Georgia Tech | 12 | 65 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 |
| Career | — | 48 | 223 | 0 | 4 | 18 | 3 |
Tackle totals for 2019, 2020 and 2021 are the figures Georgia Tech publishes in his official bio; the 2017 and 2018 lines come from game-log aggregation, and the career tackle total of 223 is the exact sum of the five seasons. The games listed here add to 48, while the school's bio credits him with 52 appearances in five seasons; the difference is left visible rather than reconciled by inventing games, and the per-season counts are the verified ones. Interceptions, forced fumbles and tackles for loss come from the season-by-season defensive log. Sacks are omitted entirely because no source credits him with any defensive pass-rush production, and no field is zero-filled where a source is silent.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Big safety whose NFL value was special teams snaps and nothing beyond them.
Box safety who turned linebacker size and downhill tackling into a long starting career.
Drafted safety who never solved coverage and was out of the league inside four years.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Green Bay took him 228th overall and used him the way the projection said: he signed his rookie deal on May 6, 2022, played 14 games as a rookie without a start, and finished with eight combined tackles, almost all of his work coming on coverage units. The Packers released him on August 30, 2023 before his second season began.
Pittsburgh signed him to the practice squad on September 2, 2023 and he appeared in three games with one solo and one assisted tackle. Then it ended abruptly: the Steelers released him on December 17, 2023, the same day he was arrested in Pittsburgh and charged with simple assault after allegedly throwing a woman to the ground and holding her against her will, and the league handed him a six-game suspension in October 2024. His NFL career closed at 17 games, zero starts and 10 combined tackles. He surfaced in the UFL with the San Antonio Brahmas in September 2024, was released in April 2025, was selected by the St. Louis Battlehawks on January 14, 2026 and released on April 22. The athletic traits that made him a draft pick were never enough on their own, and the arrest removed whatever runway remained.