They all need someone to show them the way.
Brian Barnes made his NFL debut in 2019 with the Panthers, a weak team with a lot of experienced defensive linemen. The players he considered for the job were Gerald McCoy, Dontari Poe, Mario Addison and Bruce Irvin.
“There are a lot of veterans to learn from,” Burns said.
The following season, the veterans were gone and Barnes, 22, in his second year in the NFL, was left to, in some ways, go it alone.
“I was kind of the leader of the group,” he said.
In 2021, Barnes has been given teammates to help him in his quest to become a feared edge rusher.
Haason Reddick joined Barnes at age 27 after four years with the Cardinals, and he was exactly what Barnes needed.
“That’s when I developed that competitive spirit with the other team,” Barnes said. “I was able to learn a lot from him.”
It’s karma. Barnes, 26, is in his first offseason with the Giants, paired with 23-year-old outside linebacker Kayvon Thibodeau, the No. 5 overall pick in the 2022 draft.
“I’m in my sixth year and he’s in his third year and we’re in similar situations,” Barnes said. “It’s the same for me and Hasson. It’s definitely had a great impact on my career.”
Perhaps a blockbuster trade with the Panthers sending Barnes to the Giants would provide a springboard for Thibodeau to join the ranks of the league’s top pass rushers.
Thibodeau has performed well, recording a team-high 11.5 sacks in 2023 despite the lack of a reliable quality rusher on the other side of the line, improving from the four he had in his rookie year.
Thibodeau has never lined up with a true threat on the other side of the defensive line — Dexter Lawrence is a force on the interior — and he never sat in the Giants’ locker room swapping pass-rush moves and setups with a seasoned sack-master teammate.
Barnes, who recorded 46 sacks in five NFL seasons, qualifies but has often been forced to go it alone, struggling for a Panthers organization that went 24-59 in his five years in Charlotte.
“Yeah, it’s competitive,” Thibodeau said. “We’re both chasing greatness every day. He knows a lot. He’s been in the league a lot longer than I have. He’s got a lot of game power, a lot of gems that will help my game. Just keep getting with him on and off the field and keep growing.”
The early days of their relationship were centered on personality and shared interests rather than soccer skills. There’s plenty of time for coaching on the field, but it’s important to get to know each other as people first.
The two met a few years ago when Thibodeau made a recruiting visit to Florida State and Barnes served as the host for the trip.
Thibodeau said he’s always compared himself to Barnes, and now being with him full-time is “a moment where everything came back together.”
“He’s a Florida kid,” Thibodeau says, “a little bit of city and a little bit of country. I’m from Los Angeles on the West Coast. We talk about a mix of outdoors and indoors, big city and open country. It’s a good mix. We’ve met up and I’ve shown him stuff and he’s shown me stuff. We’ve talked about culture and music. It’s been a good time so far.”
Barnes calls his year with Reddick a rewarding experience, teaching him “the little things that you don’t really think about, the things that only a veterinarian can teach you.”
Barnes’ plan is to work out with Redick soon, a move that would make sense geographically since Redick is now with the Jets.
Barnes wants to hear how Redick was able to record 11 sacks with the Panthers in 2021 and then 16 with the Eagles the following season.
Barnes also wants to ask how he helped Redick during their time together.
His current assignment is to work with Thibodeau.
“Right now we’re just getting used to each other and bouncing ideas off each other,” Barnes said. “We’ve been spending a lot of time developing that chemistry. We also need some healthy competition. We compete in pretty much everything we do, on and off the field. I have people who push me and I can push them back. That’s going to be a positive this year.”
That’s the plan — to show that two are better than one.
