I'm with Coltonja. Nick Barnett had 100+ tackles and 4 sacks last year. This year he'll once again be over 100 tackles. The year after that, he'll have over 100 tackles.
What more do you want? Nick Barnett and Ryan Grant are probably our two most underappreciated players.
"zombieslayer" wrote:
Well, I guess I've found something I don't agree with you on, zombie.
IMO Barnett is one of our most over-rated players.
Yes, he has a lot of tackles, but do not most teams have an ILB with about 100 tackles? And an awful lot of those tackles come 5-7 yards past the line of scrimmage. When a lot of plays run through the middle, an ILB is going to have a lot of tackle chances.
And he takes bad angles way too often for someone with his experience.
If he hadn't had the benefit of Ryan Pickett (and now Raji) in front of him, I'm betting he'd be well below average.
It's odd. I used to argue that he was at least as good as Urlacher (who, IMO, is still one of the most overrated ILBs in recent memory). But something happened -- I don't know if it was the off field stuff with the bar, injury problems, scheme change, whatever -- but Barnett just doesn't impress me anymore. He's just a guy who has a couple plays a game where he can do his samurai dance.
Better than the alternatives currently available? Doubtless. Better than all Packer LBs not named Clay Matthews. That, too, though sometimes I wonder if Chillar would be an improvement.
But good in some absolute sense of "what we should want from an ILB?" No.
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Romans 12:2 (NKJV)