The Washington Redskins announced the hiring of Joe Barry as the team's defensive coordinator on Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2015. Take a look back at Barry's NFL career through photos.
The Washington Redskins announced today that they have named Joe Barry as their defensive coordinator.
Barry assumes the role of defensive coordinator entering his 15th NFL season, having spent the previous four seasons as the San Diego Chargers' linebackers coach.
In 2014, the Chargers' defense ranked ninth overall in total yards allowed per game (338.3), including a No. 4 ranking in passing yards allowed per game (214.2).
Perhaps Barry's greatest challenge as a coach came in the 2013 season, when his linebackers unit was so affected by injuries that the team started the same four linebackers in consecutive weeks just twice the whole year.
Despite the injuries, however, starting linebackers Donald Butler and Manti Te'o finished the year with 99 and 93 tackles, respectively, and the group was responsible for 16 of the team's 35 sacks, including 4.5 by Thomas Keiser, a practice squad player at the start of the season who went on to lead the linebackers in sacks and quarterback hits (10).
Barry, a native of Boulder, Colo., is a former NFL defensive coordinator with significant experience coaching linebackers. A linebacker himself, Barry initially played at the University of Michigan from 1989 to 1990 before transferring to the University of Southern California, where he earned varsity letters in 1992 and 1993 and earned a degree in communications the following year.
After spending the 1994 season as USC's video coordinator, Barry earned his first coaching gig 1995 at the school as a graduate assistant working with the defensive line, helping guide a Trojan team that won the Rose Bowl. He spent five seasons coaching in the college ranks before landing on an NFL staff in 2000, when he was named a quality control coach with the San Francisco 49ers.
A year later, he was named linebackers coach for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and in 2002, he won a Super Bowl ring with the Bucs as they defeated the Oakland Raiders, 48-21, in Super Bowl XXXVII in San Diego. The title capped off a season in which the Buccaneers led the NFL in total and scoring defense, and in which linebacker Derrick Brooks was named NFL Defensive Player of the Year.
Barry spent six seasons in Tampa Bay before landing the job as defensive coordinator in Detroit during the 2007-08 seasons. He returned to Tampa Bay in 2009 as linebackers coach and has continued coaching the position until being hired by the Redskins.
Barry and his wife, Chris, have two daughters, Camryn and Lauren, and twin sons, Nick and Sam. He was born on July 5, 1970.
JOE BARRY FOOTBALL TIMELINE:
2015-Present: Defensive Coordinator, Washington Redskins
2011-14: Linebackers Coach, San Diego Chargers
2010: Linebackers Coach, USC
2009: Linebackers Coach, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
2007-08: Defensive Coordinator, Detroit Lions
2001-06: Linebackers Coach, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
2000: Defensive Quality Control, San Francisco 49ers
1999: Linebackers Coach, UNLV
1996-98: Linebackers/Defensive Ends Coach, Northern Arizona
1995: Graduate Assistant/Defensive Line Coach, USC
1994: Video Coordinator, USC
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