Eagles Notebook: Eagles' Kenjon Barner is midst of running battle

KENJON BARNER'S streak of preseason games with at least one punt return for a touchdown stands at two, following the Eagles' 40-17 strafing of the Baltimore Ravens Saturday night.

This time, Barner got the ball on the right side, near the Ravens' bench. He didn't have to run backward, as he did on Pat McAfee's boomer the week before against the Colts, but just as on that return, the Ravens' punter outkicked the coverage.

Ed Reynolds, E.J. Biggers and Jeff Maehl all made blocks that gave Barner room to accelerate and maneuver. Barner just flat-out ran past two Ravens as he cut back across the grain to the wide-open left side and was gone, 68 yards this time, after going 92 against the Colts.

Barner said when he got the ball, he saw "guys in front of me doing their jobs. I think I made a guy miss or something like that, but once I was able to get back out, I saw guys kind of overpursuing, trying to get to where they thought the ball was going, which was where it was supposed to go, to the right.

"Once I saw them overpursuing, it opened up a cutback lane, I was able to hit it, and take it to the house."

The Eagles traded a conditional seventh-round pick to Carolina for Barner last August. He had played for Chip Kelly at Oregon, understood what Kelly wanted at running back and in the return game. But in the preseason finale against the Jets, Barner suffered an ankle injury that led to him being waived/injured. The Panthers didn't get the draft pick. Barner rejoined the practice squad in November.

Barner, 26, with 10 preseason carries for 44 yards, is behind DeMarco Murray, Ryan Mathews and Darren Sproles in the Eagles' running hierarchy, and if it weren't for his sparkling returns, he'd be feeling pressure from undrafted Purdue rookie Raheem Mostert (21 carries, 87 yards, and a 40-yard ramble with a swing pass in the Colts game).

But as impressive as that group seems, Barner has stood out.

Kelly acknowledged Barner is "making a huge case" to be part of the roster. "He's putting himself in position."

"Our backfield is stacked," Barner said. "But that's nothing new to me; I've been in stacked backfields since I was in college [with LaMichael James, De'Anthony Thomas and Onterrio Smith]. It's all about finding a place for you to fit in, and opening eyes to you."

Last year "was very difficult," said Barner, a sixth-round pick of the Panthers in 2013. "Even when I came back here, I wasn't really healthy. That was my first time dealing with an injury that lasted an entire year. I didn't know how to deal with that mentally. It affected me mentally, it affected my confidence level . . . I couldn't 'burst,' I couldn't cut like I was accustomed to cutting."

With Marcus Smith sidelined indefinitely by a hamstring injury, Vinny Curry and Brad Jones took snaps at outside linebacker Saturday.

Curry played 397 snaps last season, almost all of them as an interior rusher in sub packages. Jones spent the last three seasons as an inside linebacker with the Packers.

"They both did pretty well," defensive coordinator Bill Davis said. "Vinny, we had him rushing more than dropping [into coverage]. And Brad hadn't been out there [on the outside] in a little while. So he was a little rusty. We've tried to keep the whole preseason pretty simple, callwise."

Injuries have left the Eagles extremely thin at outside linebacker. Smith, the team's 2014 first-round pick, appeared to be the leading candidate to be the team's top backup behind starters Connor Barwin and Brandon Graham. But he injured his hamstring last week in practice, and it's uncertain whether he'll be back for the start of the regular season Sept. 14.

Curry, who weighs a little less than 280 pounds, had nine sacks last season, which was second on the team to Barwin's 14 1/2. But he's never been a stand-up linebacker, and he's never dropped into coverage.

"I don't think the stand-up part is a big deal," Davis said. "It's the dropping part that gets you."

Davis said he's not all that concerned about Curry's ability to cover, since he wouldn't have to do it much.

"In the outside 'backer world, you really want to be able to rush the passer first, and set edges in the run, and Vinny can do both of those things," he said. "The last thing we ask you to do is learn how to drop. It's not complicated, and we can protect you sometimes. So Vinny will pick it up easily.

"Position-swapping is what we really love in this defense and offense. Defensively, we have quite a few guys right now who can play multiple positions. Vinny will be one that adds to that group."

DeMarco Murray made his debut with five carries for 17 yards and a touchdown . . . Riley Cooper (thumb) and Rasheed Bailey (shoulder) got X-rays during the game that were negative, the Eagles said . . . John Moffitt whiffed badly on Arthur Brown's sack of Matt Barkley . . . The Eagles' defense looked really good again, but Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco (3-for-7 for 23 yards, two picks) was extremely inaccurate. The second pick, Flacco's receiver was wide-open when he overthrew him, right to Byron Maxwell, who had given too big a cushion.

Paul Domowitch contributed to this report.

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