Last year—and even going into this year—Detroit Lions linebacker Derrick Barnes was lost. Having spent just a single year as an off-ball linebacker in college, the mental challenge of playing that position at an NFL level was proving to be too much.
“He came into this year raw, and I mean raw,” linebackers coach Kelvin Sheppard said, bluntly adding, “Ball goes right, he goes left.”
But Barnes has shown some serious improvement from his rookie season. There were plenty of mistakes along the way in his six starts, and he took those as learning opportunities.