Carter
Warren.
Carter
Warren.
Pittsburgh· 6'6"· 311 lb
"A five-year ACC left tackle whose 35-inch arms won the first second of every rep, drafted on the bet that a wrecked knee had only paused a starter's development rather than ended it."Pre-draft read
Prototypical left tackle build with the length to live on an island, and Pittsburgh used him there on nearly every snap. His game is built on an early punch: he fires his inside hand into the breastplate, gets his 35-inch arms locked out before the rusher closes the corner, and rides speed past the pocket. The anchor drops early against power, and once he grips, defenders stop moving.
In the run game he is a mover more than a mauler, active-footed on down blocks and duo, working torque rather than knockback, and comfortable climbing to the second level. Finish is the signature — he plays through the whistle. The athletic ceiling is capped: short-area quickness and hip flexibility are ordinary, so the profile leans length, grip and experience over movement.
Gap and duo-heavy run game paired with vertical-set pass protection, where his length can strike first and he is rarely asked to cover open grass.
Year 1: developmental backup tackle and jumbo package body. Ceiling: dependable swing tackle who can start four to six games without breaking the protection.
Outside-zone offense that asks the tackle to reach a 5-tech's outside shoulder on the move — his feet stop on contact and the reach block is the block he cannot make.
Length buys him the first second of every rep; scheme has to make sure the rep ends there.
Pittsburgh LT Carter Warren in 7 plays
Trench-focused breakdown of his punch timing, lockout and anchor against ACC edge rushers.
Carter Warren 2023 NFL Draft Tape | Pitt OL
Full pre-draft cutup of his left tackle reps across the 2021 and 2022 seasons.
Carter Warren Left Tackle Highlights
Highlight reel emphasizing his run-game climbs to the second level and finish through the whistle.
Warren was the rare fifth-year tackle who had actually done the job at the position teams were drafting him for. He redshirted, waited a year, then started at left tackle from 2019 forward and never moved — a five-year body of ACC work with the arm length, mass and demeanor a pro line coach recognizes immediately.
The résumé had real substance: second-team All-ACC in 2021 as the blindside protector of a conference-title offense, and only nine sacks charged in nearly forty starts. The complications were just as real. A season-ending knee injury four games into 2022 ended his college career early, cost him the entire pre-draft testing cycle, and left evaluators grading medicals as much as tape. What tape existed showed a blocker who wins early with length but gets loose when the rep extends — a waist-bender when he over-commits, and a tackle whose feet stop once his hands land.
The board consensus landed in the fourth-to-sixth range: a starter-caliber frame with a backup-caliber margin for error. The Jets took him at 120 as a developmental left tackle behind a veteran room, betting that clean medicals and forty career starts would eventually produce a swing tackle who could survive four games without sinking the offense.
- 01
Length weaponized
35 3/8-inch arms are not just measured, they are used, with an early lockout punch that stops speed rushers before they can bend the corner.
- 02
Career left tackle
thirty-nine starts on the blindside in the ACC, so nothing about the position's leverage, help rules or protection calls is new to him.
- 03
Anchor and grip
drops his weight early against power and, once his hands clamp, defenders stop making ground toward the quarterback.
- 04
Temperament
plays with a finisher's mentality through the whistle, and there was never a question about toughness or competitiveness on tape.
- 05
Hand resetting
above-average hand-fighter who can re-punch and recover after losing initial placement instead of surrendering the rep.
- 01
Medical file
a season-ending knee injury four games into 2022 wiped out his final year and the entire testing cycle, leaving teams grading an incomplete athlete.
- 02
Balance under extension
over-commits and bends at the waist when he reaches, and the base support degrades once he is asked to cover ground.
- 03
Sustain issues
feet frequently stop once contact is absorbed, so mirroring reps that extend past two seconds end with him losing connection.
- 04
Ordinary short-area quickness
flexibility and change of direction are average, which forces him to sell out early against explosive edge speed.
| Yr | Team | G |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Pittsburgh | 13 |
| 2020 | Pittsburgh | 9 |
| 2021 | Pittsburgh | 14 |
| 2022 | Pittsburgh | 4 |
| Career | — | 40 |
Offensive linemen do not accumulate box-score statistics, so only games and starts are listed. Redshirted 2017 and did not appear in 2018. Career totals of 40 games and 39 starts are confirmed by an official 2026 Miami Dolphins transaction release; the 2022 season ended after four games with a knee injury.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Same lane he actually occupied — a Day 3 tackle who starts when injuries force it and rides practice squads and futures deals otherwise.
The realistic ceiling: a long-armed spot starter who bounces between tackle spots for a decade because the length keeps him functional.
The floor the medical hinted at: a physically talented tackle whose availability and balance never let the traits stabilize into a role.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
New York never got the clean runway the pick required. Warren opened his rookie year on injured reserve, returned in mid-October, and was pressed into duty by injuries ahead of him: eight appearances, five starts at right tackle and one at left, on a Jets offense that was collapsing around a backup quarterback. The reps were survivable rather than convincing — he held up in phone-booth situations and got beaten on the edge when the rush plan targeted him. In 2024 the team moved on from the idea of him as a starter; he played six games with a single start, mostly as a jumbo body and emergency insurance. By August 2025 he could not win the swing tackle job, the Jets shopped him without finding a taker, and he was released. Atlanta added him to the practice squad, Miami signed him to a futures deal that winter, and a waived-injured designation in June 2026 put him on injured reserve.
In hindsight the medical flag was the whole evaluation, and the fourth round was where the market priced it correctly. Warren was never a bad player — fourteen games and six starts by year two is more than most Day 3 tackles produce — but the developmental time he needed was exactly what the injury had already spent. The length and the starts were real; the recovery window and the athletic margin were not there to convert them.