Don't miss our podcast, Processing Blue, and subscribe to our newsletter, Access Panthers. This year is crucial for Bryce Young as he seeks to establish himself as a franchise quarterback, and for second-year head coach Dave Canales with his upgraded team. Follow along through training camp, preseason, and the regular season.
Krys Barnes couldn’t shake the quiet.
Picture early May. A 27-year-old inside linebacker with five NFL seasons under his belt was heading in for a day’s work. His office was a gym called Ollin Athletics and Sports Medicine in Cypress, Texas. It’s the offseason workout home of dozens of NFL players and is regularly loud and competitive and fun.
But on this May morning, Barnes stepped inside the walls and noticed something.
“It’s empty,” he said.
The energy was gone. So was the competition. It was that time of year when the other members were scattered across the country, off to offseason training activities with their respective teams. Barnes had always been one of those guys.
He was a starter calling the defense in the NFC Championship game with the Green Bay Packers his rookie season in 2020 — so valuable that he played with a bulky cast protecting a broken thumb. He started 13 games the next year in Green Bay. An injury pervaded 2022. In 2023, he signed with Arizona and spent the next two seasons there. Through it all, he always had a plan, a schedule, an NFL future.
Yet somehow, in this offseason of all offseasons, there Barnes was: in a massive gym, only accompanied by a quiet he couldn’t shake — one he still can’t.
“Once you’re training and everybody leaves, and it’s literally just you and maybe one other guy in the gym after having 15-20 dudes, it hits a little different,” Barnes told The Charlotte Observer after practice Monday. “You get on social media and obviously everybody is back at training camp. And it’s like, ‘OK, this kinda sucks.’”
The extra space in the gym made room for darkness, Barnes said. Plenty of room for doubt, too. And nothing could fully vanquish those looming feelings — no matter how much extra work assured him he was ready, no matter how much praying helped his peace.
Eventually, Barnes got a call. It was the Carolina Panthers. Training camp had already started. Final cut-down day was less than a month away.
He made a vow to his new employer and himself.
“I’m just trying to show that I was ready when y’all called,” Barnes said. “And I’ll be ready whenever my name is called again.”
Dec 15, 2024; Glendale, Arizona, USA; Arizona Cardinals linebacker Krys Barnes (51) against the New England Patriots at State Farm Stadium. Mark J. Rebilas USA TODAY NETWORK
‘Y’all literally just cut me’
So how did Barnes get to this offseason? How did he go from starting and calling the defense in an NFC championship game as a rookie, to finding internal motivation in an empty gym in 2025? How did he end up with the Panthers?
Let’s start with the Panthers side of things.
Carolina spent the 2025 offseason reloading the defense. It was required. A year prior, the unit had given up 534 points — the most in a single season in the NFL — and allowed a league-worst 3,057 rushing yards. The front office sought to rectify that by signing safety Tre’Von Moehrig and defensive lineman Bobby Brown III and Turk Wharton in free agency. General manager Dan Morgan followed that up by drafting two pass rushers in the second- and third-rounds in Nic Scourton and Princely Umanmielen, among other defensive players.
The team also signed Christian Rozeboom, an inside linebacker coming off a 135-tackle season in Los Angeles.
The defensive personnel made a massive leap. All seemed relatively stable. And then, on the day veterans reported to training camp, Panthers starting inside linebacker Josey Jewell was released by the team after his concussion-like symptoms remained months after he suffered it in a December contest. The news was saddening for Jewell — but also alarming for the defense. The inside linebacker room was already arguably thinner than everywhere else on the roster; now, with Jewell gone, it was the thinnest.
Enter Barnes.
Oct 21, 2024; Glendale, Arizona, USA; Arizona Cardinals linebacker Krys Barnes (51) against the Los Angeles Chargers at State Farm Stadium. Mark J. Rebilas USA TODAY NETWORK
The 6-foot-2, 229-pound linebacker out of UCLA was signed a few days later to give that room much-needed depth. He was asked to come in mid-camp and be ready to hit the ground running.
And even though coming in mid-camp wasn’t ideal — and something he’d never done before — Barnes was prepared. His career until that point had been defined by being prepared when it was easy not to be.
Barnes arrived to the NFL undrafted. The Bakersfield, Calif., native was signed by the Green Bay Packers in 2020. And that summer, he ran with the third string. Got very few reps all camp, all preseason. He was cut by the team thereafter.
But upon his return to the practice squad — and official word of an injury to fellow rookie linebacker Kamal Martin that year — he received a call from the Packers brass.
“On cut day, they told me, ‘Be prepared to start come Sunday,’” Barnes said. He laughed as he retold the moment, recalling how confused he was. “I was like, ‘Y’all literally just cut me. I turned my iPad in.’ I don’t know what’s going on at this point.”
But the Packers clearly did. They signed him to the 53-man active roster that Friday, two days before Week 1. And he made plays that week in a 43-34 win over the Minnesota Vikings, including a tackle for loss on shifty running back Dalvin Cook.
He’d start in 12 of the 15 games he played in 2020 — and would wear the green dot (call the plays) for a handful of them. That included the NFC championship loss to the eventual Super Bowl-winning, Tom Brady-led Tampa Bay Bucs.
For a moment, a steady future gleamed.
How Barnes found the Carolina Panthers
Things changed, however, in the next few years.
He’d have a career year in Green Bay in 2021 starting alongside De’Vondre Campbell, notching 88 tackles, four pass deflections, two fumble recoveries and one sack. But the momentum slowed in 2022. He suffered an ankle injury Week 1 that kept him out for eight weeks. That on top of the Packers drafting linebacker Quay Walker in the first round of the 2022 draft — plus signing Campbell to a lucrative extension before the 2022 season — prompted the Packers to move on from Barnes.
Barnes landed in Arizona. He didn’t see the field as much. But his preparedness shined through still. His biggest game of the 2024 season came in Week 6, when an injury promoted him to play the whole game against the Packers, where he notched a team-high 10 tackles and one stuff. (Fun fact: The game also marked the first time he and childhood friend, Jordan Love, played on the same NFL field together.)
But after 2024 season, he was a free agent again. And was one for a while until Carolina called.
Barnes considers every challenge a blessing.
“I feel like every year has kind of humbled me in a certain way,” he said. “Being undrafted did that. It put a spark in me. I don’t want every year to be like this, where I’m waiting all offseason. I want to make sure I’m somewhere from here on out. I pray it’s here, I feel like there’s a great opportunity here.
“But if it’s not, hopefully there are teams that grab me after this. And I could still have that opportunity where I can prove where I’m supposed to be at. But all I can do is put my best foot forward and allow God to handle the rest.”
Dave Canales loves Krys Barnes’ demeanor
Defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero’s system isn’t all that different from the system he played in with the Packers. Barnes and head coach Dave Canales agreed on that.
What else does Canales think? He’s impressed.
“Really good demeanor,” Canales said. “He’s a guy who’s called this defense before. They’re very similar to what he’s done before, but there are nuances, so those are kind of things we’re still working through.
“But I think just being able to stand in front of the huddle, communicate it well, and then just running and hitting and playing physical type of football, and was very usable on special teams. I’m glad he had the opportunity to come here.”
Barnes understands a roster spot isn’t a guarantee. He’s had to make it with Trevin Wallace, Rozeboom, Claudin Cherelus, Jon Rhattigan, Jacoby Windmon and undrafted free agent Bam Martin-Scott.
The good news? It never has been a guarantee. He also knows that he has one more preseason game left — Thursday night at Bank of America Stadium against the Steelers — for a final impression.
One more game left to shake the quiet, to make some noise.
“To showcase that I do belong in this league and kind of get some of that rep back that I had in my earlier days,” Barnes said. “So I’m excited for this opportunity to say the least.”