Barnett

[packfntk]

Hey guys, not sure if anyone remembers me but I am a Packer fan that has posted on here in the past. You may remember I tried to trade you Barnett....

 

Just wanted to give you a little bit of an idea of what you get when you have Nick Barnett on your team:

 

Barnett was my favorite player for the Packers for years. I wanted him when we drafted him from Oregon State, and was jumping for joy when we drafted him. I even went to the point of calling the Packers Pro Shop and having them stitch me an authentic Barnett jersey before they made them. So here is a little bit from my perspective of having NB for the last 8 years:

 

1- Nick stepped in day 1 and started as our MLB when we were in the 4-3. He did incredibly well racking up 112 tackles and 2 sacks and 3 INT. He had won over the fans.

2- Nick has been consistent in his ability to get across both sidelines. He has speed and tracks the ball down.

3- Nick is better suited for a 4-3 than a 3-4. In the 4-3 when we ran it, we filtered everything through him, this explains the tackles being high. Since switching to the 3-4 he has not been quite as effective.

4- I believe NB is an OUTSIDE 3-4 LB. Yes, outside. He doesn't quite have the size to be an ILB in the system. He has the speed to blitz from the outside and force pressure but refuses to play the position. We talked to him about playing outside but he was not having it. I wanted to have Clay Matthews, AJ Hawk, Desmond Bishop, and Nick Barnett as our LB's. Get all of your best players on the field, you know? He threw a fit about it.

5- You do not get the turnovers from NB that you need out of you LBers. Turnovers or big plays for that matter. In 8 years, Barnett forced 9 INT and forced 2 fumbles. He also racked up 15.5 sacks. Yeah, that adds up to 1 pick a year, .25 FF a year, and just under 2 sacks a year.

6- You get a leader in the locker room. He is an emotional leader and is VERY vocal. This is something you cannot instill in someone.

7- You get a distraction. NB is a good guy but the man causes you headaches. It may be all fine and glory at the beginning, but sooner or later he starts to cause promlems (Remember the team picture, he wouldn't go to the team directly, he went out to the media).

8- You get Twitter posts. I love twitter, but Barnett tweets for a living. And he doesn't filter what he tweets. If he doesn't like something coach said or what another player did, he tells his thousands of followers about it. He stirs the pot.

9- You get a player who has been injured as of late. NB was the model of consistency in his first 5 years. He only missed 1 game in that time. He has been injured twice in the last 2 years with season ending injuries. He played in 4 games last year and in 9 games 3 years ago. I hope for your sake his body is ready to be up to the challenge. He is 30, so hopefully he can have a few more productive years.

10- You get a character. There is always something interesting going on when he is on your team. He is always talking, and always doing something goofy. He makes a splash when he enters the stadium during announcements.

11- I wanted to keep it to 10, but had to add this as well. I know Buffalo is a smaller market like GB. I live in GB, so I wanted to let you know of this. Barnett not only plays for your team, but he brings his posse with him. Yeah I said posse. HAHA. He is kind of ghetto if you know what I mean and all the dudes hang out in the bars all the time so some of you who live in the area may get to talk to him. He started a club called 5-6 when he was here that went under. It had a horrible reputation for having problems with the law and drugs all over the place. Hope that doesn't happen in Buffalo.

 

So just some things for you just in case you didn't know a ton about Barnett. I still like the guy and wanted to keep him around on the Packers regardless of his negatives. His leadership is great. You may get sick of the Samurai celebration. He does it even when you are losing when he makes a big play. I defended it for years when my buddies would get pissed. So I hope you have great luck with him and have a great season. You have made some moves that immediately make you better IMO.

 

Let me have it!

[Doc]

Hey guys, not sure if anyone remembers me but I am a Packer fan that has posted on here in the past. You may remember I tried to trade you Barnett....

 

Just wanted to give you a little bit of an idea of what you get when you have Nick Barnett on your team:

 

Barnett was my favorite player for the Packers for years. I wanted him when we drafted him from Oregon State, and was jumping for joy when we drafted him. I even went to the point of calling the Packers Pro Shop and having them stitch me an authentic Barnett jersey before they made them. So here is a little bit from my perspective of having NB for the last 8 years:

 

1- Nick stepped in day 1 and started as our MLB when we were in the 4-3. He did incredibly well racking up 112 tackles and 2 sacks and 3 INT. He had won over the fans.

2- Nick has been consistent in his ability to get across both sidelines. He has speed and tracks the ball down.

3- Nick is better suited for a 4-3 than a 3-4. In the 4-3 when we ran it, we filtered everything through him, this explains the tackles being high. Since switching to the 3-4 he has not been quite as effective.

4- I believe NB is an OUTSIDE 3-4 LB. Yes, outside. He doesn't quite have the size to be an ILB in the system. He has the speed to blitz from the outside and force pressure but refuses to play the position. We talked to him about playing outside but he was not having it. I wanted to have Clay Matthews, AJ Hawk, Desmond Bishop, and Nick Barnett as our LB's. Get all of your best players on the field, you know? He threw a fit about it.

5- You do not get the turnovers from NB that you need out of you LBers. Turnovers or big plays for that matter. In 8 years, Barnett forced 9 INT and forced 2 fumbles. He also racked up 15.5 sacks. Yeah, that adds up to 1 pick a year, .25 FF a year, and just under 2 sacks a year.

6- You get a leader in the locker room. He is an emotional leader and is VERY vocal. This is something you cannot instill in someone.

7- You get a distraction. NB is a good guy but the man causes you headaches. It may be all fine and glory at the beginning, but sooner or later he starts to cause promlems (Remember the team picture, he wouldn't go to the team directly, he went out to the media).

8- You get Twitter posts. I love twitter, but Barnett tweets for a living. And he doesn't filter what he tweets. If he doesn't like something coach said or what another player did, he tells his thousands of followers about it. He stirs the pot.

9- You get a player who has been injured as of late. NB was the model of consistency in his first 5 years. He only missed 1 game in that time. He has been injured twice in the last 2 years with season ending injuries. He played in 4 games last year and in 9 games 3 years ago. I hope for your sake his body is ready to be up to the challenge. He is 30, so hopefully he can have a few more productive years.

10- You get a character. There is always something interesting going on when he is on your team. He is always talking, and always doing something goofy. He makes a splash when he enters the stadium during announcements.

11- I wanted to keep it to 10, but had to add this as well. I know Buffalo is a smaller market like GB. I live in GB, so I wanted to let you know of this. Barnett not only plays for your team, but he brings his posse with him. Yeah I said posse. HAHA. He is kind of ghetto if you know what I mean and all the dudes hang out in the bars all the time so some of you who live in the area may get to talk to him. He started a club called 5-6 when he was here that went under. It had a horrible reputation for having problems with the law and drugs all over the place. Hope that doesn't happen in Buffalo.

 

So just some things for you just in case you didn't know a ton about Barnett. I still like the guy and wanted to keep him around on the Packers regardless of his negatives. His leadership is great. You may get sick of the Samurai celebration. He does it even when you are losing when he makes a big play. I defended it for years when my buddies would get pissed. So I hope you have great luck with him and have a great season. You have made some moves that immediately make you better IMO.

 

Let me have it!

The Bills will play both 4-3 and 3-4, so having a versatile guy like NB will be good. As for being better in the 4-3 versus the 3-4, kind of hard to say. The Packers went to a 3-4 defense 2 years ago, and despite having another ILB working with him, he posted fairly similar tackle numbers, had a career-best in sacks, and tied his career best in PD's. This happened a year after an ACL injury (that he had a good season in 2009 is good to know, since it means be recovered from that injury). Last year he played in just 4 games before suffering a wrist injury, which has healed and isn't nearly as much of a concern as an ACL. Whether he's breaking down is anyone's guess. However he only played 4 games last year, which means he had longer to recover.

 

As for the other stuff, it will be interesting to see how he acts. Can't predict that one.

[packfntk]

His career best in sacks was 4. Not to say what you said has no merit, but that is not great for someone who plays nearly every down and blitzed a TON. He also had NO Forced Fumbles, NO INT, and NO Fumbles Recovered. Yeah he had 100 tackles which is great, but in the 3-4 you need more production out of your LBers. Just sayin.

 

I am not trying to rain on your parade or tell you to not be excited, I just paid VERY close attention to what he does because I love him as a player. He is just undersized as an ILB and gets tossed around on the inside in the 3-4.

[mrags]

Few thoughts and thank you for the post packfan

 

the things that scare me:

Tweets (we just got rid of Donte, now this)?

The partying and bar hoping with the posse, thug style (we just got rid of Lynch and now this)?

The Injuries (we just got rid of Poz and now this)?

 

The things I like:

-the leadership, in the locker room and on the field

-the consistancy, yeah he has been injured as of late, I guess I'm just hoping he can stay healthy. Even if he plays sub-Barnett he is still better than Poz

-the fact that he can play in a 3-4 and a 4-3 and has the ability to roam from sideline to sideline, unlike Poz who was ALWAYS 5 yards behind the ballcarrier and took very bad angles in pursuit.

-the on field stuff, celebrations, "splash" during introductions. We need more of this. This team has been so dull at times it's sickening. I want guys who will tell the fans the day before a game that we are not being loud enough, or to get as crazy as possible. We have that with Barnett and Merriman and I think it pumps everyone up from the team all the way to the fans in the upper deck.

 

Overall, I'll take the things I like. It's basically like we picked up Barnett to be all the bad out of Whitner, Poz, and Lynch all in one guy, but his good points are still better than all of them on thier best days.

[....lybob]

beggars can't be choosers - free agency was weak at 3-4 ILB in the first place- I don't see Barnett as an upgrade to POZ but neither do I see him as a liability, sometimes you don't have a lot of good options- I think the Bills did as well as they could without overpaying. To me Kelsay as the starting OLB is much more troubling than ILB, I don't think he can cover or make tackles in the open field and if I was an opposing offense I'd target him at every opportunity.

[NewEra]

Thanks for the info.

 

I view him as a complete upgrade to poz, if healthy. One reason: coverage. He can cover. Poz doesn't know how to spell cover.

[Doc]

His career best in sacks was 4. Not to say what you said has no merit, but that is not great for someone who plays nearly every down and blitzed a TON. He also had NO Forced Fumbles, NO INT, and NO Fumbles Recovered. Yeah he had 100 tackles which is great, but in the 3-4 you need more production out of your LBers. Just sayin.

 

I am not trying to rain on your parade or tell you to not be excited, I just paid VERY close attention to what he does because I love him as a player. He is just undersized as an ILB and gets tossed around on the inside in the 3-4.

I'm not saying Barnett is as good as Willis or Lewis, but he's an upgrade over Poz, health-willing (not that Poz was any sort of ironman himself). As for the stats, 4 sacks is about what the aforementioned Willis and Lewis average, but I'll grant you that the lack of INT's or FF's isn't ideal.

[starrymessenger]

Thanks, I guess.

No, seriously thanks.

[dgrid]

thanks for the insight packfntk

[mikef272002]

So your saying were getting a guy that causes problems, on and off the field..Uses Tweeter to bad mouth coaches and other players, is hurt alot, and don't play well in a 3-4..Isn't really a difference maker with only 9 INT's and .25 FF a year, celebrates like Maybin ( when he finally makes a big play even if were losing 40 - 0 )and finally he will cause a distraction if we want to ask him to move outside.. But on the plus side, your saying he likes to drink w/ his posse and we could probably meet him out some night and buy him a beer..I also noticed you stated he was a respectable business man starting up a club in GB, I'm sure he never knew drugs were being sold outta there..! Thank you for ruining my day...!

[Lurker]

beggars can't be choosers - free agency was weak at 3-4 ILB in the first place- I don't see Barnett as an upgrade to POZ but neither do I see him as a liability, sometimes you don't have a lot of good options- I think the Bills did as well as they could without overpaying.

Good summation.

 

With few LB options available, Nix filled a hole with a capable vet at a resonable price. As a bonus, Sheppard can have time to develop, rather than being tossed to the Lions out of necessity.

[yungmack]

A bar in Wisconsin where drugs were plentiful? I spend time in Wisconsin, city and country, and I'd say that describes the majority of bars.

[packfntk]

[quote name='foreplayer' timestamp='1312226156' post=Thank you for ruining my day...!

 

Sorry about that big guy. He is good at times but does have the negatives that come with him, I just thought I would let you guys know from my insight.

[Scrappy]

Sorry about that big guy. He is good at times but does have the negatives that come with him, I just thought I would let you guys know from my insight.

 

He can cover TE's that sells me right there. You have no idea what we have been through & how it has cost us games to watch Brady / other QB's pick us apart. The middle of the Bills field was like the speed limit, always violated & never fully policed.

[packfntk]

Haha, well that is understood and he should be fine for that. I can't wait until the Packers play at The Ralph. I want to get out there for a game.

[San Jose Bills Fan]

Haha, well that is understood and he should be fine for that. I can't wait until the Packers play at The Ralph. I want to get out there for a game.

Thanks!