God has blessed me once again to be part of a great organization.. Great coaches, Great staff, Great players and more importantly great fans,” Barnett’s- Twitter page.
Ah, yes, you gotta love twitter. Who needs the media to break stories!? Here’s the 411, it’s a solid deal for the Bills at only 4-million a year for three years. Obviously, there are some questions about him, especially on the injury front, where he’s missed 19 games over the last three seasons. To me, at the very least, Barnett represents a bridge-gap to the next guy. He’s band-aid on a really bad inside linebacking core. Now, that’s just the least of it. If he can somehow get back to playing the way he did when he averaged over 100 tackles for his first five seasons, he should be an upgrade over Poz.
Barnett is a versatile player, who has played in the 3-4 and 4-3 defense, knows LB’s coach Bob Sanders from their days in Green Bay, and is a proven leader with playoff experience. From what I read about him, Barnett has great range and pursuit ability. A Good tackler. He can attack the line of scrimmage, shed blockers and get after the quarterback (Doesn’t sound like Poz, does it?). Biggest concerns: An injury liability and can get caught up out of position (Now, that sounds like Poz).
Another subplot is that I liked how John Clayton tweeted that Shawne Merriman was involved in trying to recruit Barnett to the Bills. Say what you will about Merriman succeeding or not, but he has clout with NFL players because he’s a popular guy (See: Cameo in Entourage and dating a reality star named after booze). If anyone can sell Buffalo as a player, it’s him.
As for the starters, Barnett is obviously option #1 at ILB. The thing about Barnett that Poz didn’t bring to the defense is that he can cover better. That’s key, because if he were a run stuffer only, then I wouldn’t be a big fan of having Davis and him together, because they’d be too much of the same guy. Because of the diversity, I think Davis can be the starter next to Barnett. As for Sheppard, I think it will be a matter of time before he replaces Davis. If they didn’t sign Barnett, I’d go with Davis and Sheppard as the starters, because I don’t see a future with Torbor and I believe in the baptism by fire strategy with a rebuilding team. However, with Barnett, you don’t have to do that.
I’ll say this, I do believe that Sheppard will eventually replace Davis as the starter at some point this year. Davis, is a free agent after this year, and I don’t think the Bills would bring him back. Lastly, can we all come back from the ledge please? I know the Bills aren’t going to make the playoffs this year, but fans were going nuts last week, when we were only 2 days into free agency and one 7 on 7 drill into the 2011 season. Even a cranky blogger like myself would give the Sabres at least two weeks into July to shape their roster before I went nuts.
Lets kill them later this year, please?
I’ll have more to say about Barnett, as I just sent over some questions to a Packers blogger about him. So, stay tuned.
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