He sure as hell has been playing like one. Blitzing well, covering flares better than in the 4-3, even playing as a down lineman occasionally!

And he's coming off of a major knee injury. How about some props?

He's definitely started to come on the last few weeks. Good to see. We need one of our ILBs to start making some plays.

He was invisible the first few games, but has really been coming on the last few weeks. Playing very well considering he's coming off knee surgery.

Yeah, gotta agree all around here. I was pretty sick and tired of Barnett at the beginning of the season but right now, him and Matthews have been are best linebackers.

I'm not a real big fan of Barnett but he has been playing very well of late

Like I've talked about in the old Nick Barnett thread, you just got to show patience with him.

He was hurt. He missed out on a lot of things. He was a month or two behind everyone else, so he's playing catch-up.

Barnett isn't a Pro-Bowl linebacker. Never has been (been close) and probably never will. But what he is though, is a good, solid, quality linebacker. He's going to miss a tackle and get stuffed on blocks every once in a while. That's something that won't be fixed, but he does have some good skills. He knows how to track the RB pretty good, he knows how to get in front of the football, and he knows how to apply pressure on the QB.

I don't know if he'll ever get back to his 4-3 playing level. He can get close, but his role in the 3-4 exposes his two greatest weaknesses. Shedding a block and pass coverage. A 3-4 ILB is so much more complicated then a 4-3 MLB.

Those have been the two things I've focused on. His pass coverage is improving every game, eventually I think he can be relied on to do that effectively every play. Getting out of the grips of huge lineman is still proving to be a problem for him. I haven't seen much improvement in this area. He's not a huge, tough LB, he's more of an under-sized, fast LB. And that's probably why lineman always eat him up.

He can probably help his cause his here once he starts looking for lineman on running plays instead of putting his sights on the ball carrier.

I think its rather amusing that so many people were 'expressing concern' early on with Nick's performance playing limited snaps coming back from injury. I mean, how many reps in the new defense did he have? How much 'hitting time' did he have to get ready for the season?

Yea that would be none, sherlock.

And now that he's back up to game speed he's playing the same as he ever has. An above-average starter with pretty nice cover skills and great speed.

Barnett has been improving every game and I hope it continues who knows maybe he will be better in a 3-4 than a 4-3, we can hope. Sometimes a football player can just play whatever the system is