The Pittsburgh Steelers added another veteran option to their depleted inside linebackers group with the signing of Blake Martinez announced Wednesday.

Martinez, 29, has appeared in 84 NFL regular-season games with 78 starts since turning pro in 2016. He led the league in tackles for the Green Bay Packers in 2017 but has played sparingly the past three seasons.

Martinez was signed off the Carolina Panthers’ practice squad.

”I am just as surprised as everybody else,” Martinez said of joining the Steelers. “But once it came an opportunity I couldn’t turn that down.

“I think the path was to start playing here soon for (Carolina), and I know when as I was choosing to come here they were trying to make that late push to sign me there. But ended up choosing here.”

Martinez joins an inside linebackers corps that lost two of its three co-starters (Cole Holcomb and Kwon Alexander) to season-ending injuries in consecutive weeks earlier this month. Elandon Roberts played every snap of this past Sunday’s game in Cleveland, and the only other ILB to play was a player signed three weeks prior to the practice squad who was making his Steelers’ debut, Mykal Walker.

The Steelers also have second-year inside linebacker Mark Robinson, practice-squad elevation Tariq Carpenter and on Tuesday announced that veteran Myles Jack was joining the practice squad. Jack started for the Steelers in 2022 but was released, went unsigned into August and after two weeks with the Philadelphia Eagles had announced he was retiring.

Since Martinez had his fourth consecutive season of playing all 16 games and accumulating more than 140 tackles during his first year with the New York Giants in 2020, he has rarely played but often been in the news.

Martinez’s 2021 season ended as the result of a torn ACL in Week 3, and the Giants cut him before the 2022 season began. Martinez hooked on with the Las Vegas Raiders and appeared in four games (two starts) last season but announced his retirement Nov. 10, 2022. He went into business selling rare, high-end collectibles (specifically, Pokemon cards) and reportedly made more doing that than playing pro football.

But Martinez ultimately was banned from a popular platform in that realm amid allegations of fraud. Two weeks ago, the Panthers signed him to their practice squad. By rule, the Steelers were permitted to sign him off of that to their active roster.

“It’s just historic franchise, (and) opportunity to make the playoffs, and just the (opportunity for playing time) I was going to be able to have here,” Martinez said for reasons for signing with the Steelers. “It seemed like the best option.

Martinez, who served as the Giants’ defensive captain during his two-year stint in New York, participated in his first Steelers practice Wednesday at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex.

“Just helping out here and there,” Martinez said of his practice. “Just listening, one of those things, ‘Hey, come over here, move here, move here, move there.’ I am like, ‘Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.’ Was kind of my day.

“I think once I get my feet underneath me here, get a full day in, everything will start making sense. A, ‘Football is football’ kind of thing.”

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