Antwan Barnes to Start?

[festivus]

According to the new Aaron Wilson article on the main page, Jarret Johnson suffered a broken thumb and may miss the New England game. If he can't go, Barnes gets the start.

From my amateur sofa watching with my amateur eyes, Barnes looks like a better pass rusher than Johnson. I wonder if he won't provide something of a bookend to Suggs, allowing a pass rush (finally) without Pryce?

I would still prefer to have Johnson as my starter, he is a more complete player, but for pure pass rusher and in the context of this one game, Barnes might be just the man for the job.

:ihope:

[ExiledRaven]

I am right with you on this one...for pure rushing the passer, Barnes is probably going to be a better option. It'll also see how things work out with a pincer attack. If Barnes pans out and plays well this week or in the next few...then many defensive problems are solved right there (ie, finding passrush). There is still the worry about CB and DE...but when you can generate effective rush with 4 players and either Suggs, Barnes, Scott, or Lewis may be coming from the linebacker or pseudo/De slot that will help protect the corners.

Hope this goes well for Barnes, though I'll admit I got my hopes up on him as soon as Rex Ryan told the story about the indy D-coordinator saying that the ravens stole his favorite pass-rusher right before he was about to select him.

[Ravens52]

With what the Pats do, I'm not sure Johnson would have seen much playing time anyways. The Pats most likely are not going to come in trying to run out of base personnel sets. I'm pretty sure they will be in 4WR shotgun and spread to 5WR early in the game and see where they get with that. Hopefully the thumb heals up well.

[festivus]

Good point. Our depth such as it is at DB will be sorely tested. Could be a long night.

[RavenTD]

Can you imagine Belichick, Josh McDaniels [off' co-ord'], and Tom Brady sitting down and watching the defensive coverage of the Chargers game.
You think the film room may have ended up with 6 inches of drool on the floor.

The Eagles put very good pressure on Brady.Better than the Ravens could possibly muster with their present lineup.And Brady still pulled out the win.

We better find some rush,or our poor DB's are going to be on a lonely island
and shell shocked by the end of the game.

[Bez513]

Time to find out what these backups can do for us this year but more importantly next year.

[Filmstudy]

I have to disagree on the Barnes/Johnson comparisons. Johnson is clearly a better pass rusher personally at this point, and he also provides flexibility that has kept blockers guessing.

Conversely, Barnes has been given the Roderick Green playbook this season, which has just 2 plays:
1. Go get the QB
2. Drop into a short middle zone

As further evidence, I'd offer that Barnes has been inserterd almost exclusively on passing downs and the Ravens have sacked the QB on just 4.9% of pass plays with him in. Meanwhile, playing virtually every snap this year, Johnson and his friends have sacked the QB on 6.7% of passing plays.

All that said, I'm still happy to see Barnes get a more significant role the remainder of the season. He's one of the players we have with upside.

[festivus]

Sure FilmStudy, but maybe he's really *good* at number one!

:ihope:

Don't let the cold water of reality ruin my daydream!