Packers Hosting Potential New Dime Linebacker on Predraft Visit on Monday

A four-year starting safety in the ACC, Tariq Carpenter worked at linebacker at the Senior Bowl and dazzled at pro day.

GREEN BAY, Wis. – Tariq Carpenter, an ultra-experienced, ultra-athletic safety from Georgia Tech, is spending his Monday having a predraft visit with the Green Bay Packers, according to a source.

Carpenter was a four-year starter for the Yellow Jackets. As a senior, he had 65 tackles in 10 games, highlighted by a season-high 13 stops at Clemson. He added three passes defensed and one forced fumble. In 52 career games, he picked off four passes, broke up 22 and forced three fumbles.

Carpenter capped his strong career with strong performances at the Hula Bowl and Senior Bowl. At the Hula Bowl, he was a team captain and intercepted a pass. At the Senior Bowl, he got some reps at linebacker.

“After a great week down there at the Hula Bowl, we got a lot of good reviews from our friends around the league,” Senior Bowl executive director Jim Nagy told The Atlanta Journal Constitution. “He was a guy they wanted to see more of, so it was really an easy decision once we had a roster spot open up.”

Carpenter capped his offseason with a tremendous pro day workout. At 6-foot-2 7/8 and 230 pounds, he ran his 40 in 4.47 seconds, according to Dane Brugler’s draft preview for The Athletic. He added a 39-inch vertical jump. With a strong postseason, Carpenter has gotten himself squarely into Day 3 of this month’s NFL Draft.

“I really wasn’t nervous, honestly,” Carpenter said afterward. “These drills, that’s kind of what I do. God blessed me with explosiveness.”

After going through testing, he did drills at safety and linebacker.

“Teams see me like a big ball of Play-Doh,” he said. “I’m so flexible as far as my position.”

Initially, along with special teams, the dime linebacker role – a combo linebacker and safety – might be his NFL calling card. Henry Black struggled in that role last season.

“100 percent I will get drafted higher as a linebacker than as a safety,” he told the Coastal Courier. “I am built more playing linebacker than safety and the NFL is a passing league. I think I provide the tools to help any team in the pass game immediately.”

Carpenter comes from an athletic family. His mom played college basketball at Central Methodist before becoming an Army staff sergeant. She served five international tours of duty, including three deployments to Iraq and one in Afghanistan. An uncle, Thurlos Pearson, played football at Missouri.

“My mom is definitely my ‘why,’” Carpenter told The Atlanta Journal Constitution. “She’s also my purpose. She’s my role model. She’s a person that I look up to because of those reasons because of the sacrifices that she made for me and Alexis to live a good life. I just do everything I can to make sure that she gets everything that she wants because she did the same thing for us.”

Scarred by what she saw in war, she tried to commit suicide. Her children, including Carpenter, helped get her through those rough times.

“He was right there,” Fiffie said of her son. “Everything I needed. He would talk to me, try to console me. If I needed to talk about anything, he’d be there.”