The Steelers' woes at linebacker this year will now extend to the practice squad as Tariq Carpenter has been released from the 16-man roster. According to Brooke Pryor of ESPN, Carpenter’s departure is a result of his arrest earlier today for a simple assault charge.
Carpenter was originally drafted to Green Bay in the seventh round of the 2022 draft as a safety out of Georgia Tech. As a rookie, Carpenter appeared in 14 games after missing the Packers’ first three. While near the end of the year, Carpenter found a few snaps on defense, he was almost exclusively utilized on special teams. He failed to make the 53-man roster in Green Bay this year and, three days later, signed with the Steelers’ practice squad unit.
This year, Pittsburgh has seen a litany of issues stack up at the linebacker position. They currently have three off-ball linebackers on injured reserve in Kwon Alexander, Chapelle Russell, and Cole Holcomb. The team liked Carpenter as a linebacker and, for three games in the middle of the year, called him up as a standard gameday elevation for depth. During the three games in which he made an appearance, Carpenter only appeared on special teams.
The Steelers recently signed Blake Martinez, who had recently come out of an early retirement, off of the Panthers’ practice squad and have been relying more on practice squad linebacker Kyron Johnson lately, so it seems that Carpenter’s absence won’t cause too much of an issue. Still, in a year with so much attrition at the inside linebacker position, any loss of depth is a hit
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