Green Bay Packers 2015 Impact Meter: ILB Sam Barrington

One of the Green Bay Packers' most important players on defense in 2015 will be a third-year linebacker who has just seven starts under his belt through his career.

That player, of course, is Sam Barrington, the inside linebacker who performed so well at the position in 2014 that Green Bay felt comfortable cutting veterans A.J. Hawk and Brad Jones this offseason, as Barrington continued to pilfer their snaps through the season.

Now, the stakes are higher than ever. Barrington will be asked to anchor the middle of an inside linebackers group that could make or break Green Bay's run defense in 2015. Furthermore, while he'll benefit from playing next to Clay Matthews, he may have another player lining up next to him on passing downs to allow Matthews to move outside.

Let's take a look back at Barrington's 2014 season and also look forward to his first year as a full-time starter.

2014 Season in Review

Games	Starts	Comb T	Solo T	Sacks	PD	MT
14	7	53	40	1	1	3

Barrington was never meant to play as many snaps as he did in 2014—485, per Pro Football Focus. With Hawk and Jones entrenched as the starters, Barrington didn't take a snap in a regular-season game until Week 3, when he played 18 snaps against the Detroit Lions.

But Hawk's and Jones' play continued to be unacceptable; each had six missed tackles on the season, per Pro Football Focus, and Hawk finished the season ranked No. 119 out of 125 total inside linebackers in run defense.

That led to more opportunities for inside linebacker Jamari Lattimore at first, and then Barrington, who made his first start in Week 7 against the Carolina Panthers and was graded No. 24 out of 50 inside linebackers who played that week by Pro Football Focus—not bad for a first NFL start.

Barrington also started following game, Week 8 against the New Orleans Saints, but after that, defensive coordinator Dom Capers decided to move Matthews to the inside to see if it would improve the run defense.

Hawk initially started on the inside next to Matthews in Weeks 10 through 12, but in Week 13 against the New England Patriots, Barrington earned another start and indeed would start every game from then on through the NFC Championship Game against the Seattle Seahawks.

Matt Ludtke/Associated Press

The duo of Barrington and Matthews on the inside helped the Packers go from being the worst in the league against the run through the first eight games of the season (allowing 153.5 rushing yards per game) to sixth in the latter half (allowing 86.4 yards per game), as Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times noted.

It took some tinkering with the personnel to get it right, but the Barrington-Matthews pairing was clearly the winning combination.

Barrington finished the regular season with just three missed tackles, tied for the least among inside linebackers who played at least 25 percent of their teams' defensive snaps, per Pro Football Focus.

He also had 53 combined tackles (40 solo, 13 assisted), a pass defensed and a sack.

2015 Preview

Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated Press

Barrington has steadily been receiving the first-team snaps at inside linebacker throughout offseason training activities and training-camp practices, all but cementing his status as the Packers' starting middle linebacker in 2015.

However, there's been something of a carousel going on at the inside linebacker spot next to Barrington. Matthews missed five training-camp practices with knee soreness but was cleared Monday to participate on a "trial return," as head coach Mike McCarthy put it, per Rob Demovsky of ESPN.com.

While Matthews sat out, the Packers rotated Nate Palmer, Jake Ryan, Joe Thomas and Carl Bradford in beside Barrington.

In the Packers' most recent "unofficial" depth chart, which Demovsky shared Aug. 9, the team lists Barrington as the starting "Buck" linebacker with Palmer as the starting middle linebacker, while Matthews retains his usual position as the left outside linebacker. (The depth chart is also located at Packers.com.)

Matthews will almost certainly continue in the role he started in the second half of the 2014 season: moving inside on rushing downs and moving back outside to rush the passer on passing downs.

That would mean, at least given the current landscape, Palmer would move inside to help out in coverage on third downs, while Barrington, the strong-side linebacker in the scheme, continues to offer run support.

Green Bay could also continue to experiment with other substitutions next to Barrington through the preseason and into the regular season, depending on who makes the final roster. Fourth-round draft pick Ryan is a lock, but Thomas and Bradford may be battling for one spot between them.

Barrington, meanwhile, has distinguished himself in going from a seventh-round draft pick who played just one snap in 2013, per Pro Football Focus, to helping the run defense find a resurgence in the latter half of 2014 and now looking to earn the most snaps of all Green Bay's inside linebackers in 2015.

That general manager Ted Thompson did not address inside linebacker until the fourth round of the 2015 NFL draft, when most projected immediate starters were already off the board, speaks volumes to the team's confidence in Barrington. He has the potential to be one of the biggest difference-makers for this team this season.

Projected 2015 Impact Meter: High