Jarret Johnson

Whenever there has been talk about the Ravens' lack of a pass rush, strong-side outside linebacker Jarret Johnson has taken it personally. The Ravens have gotten a strong season from outside linebacker Terrell Suggs and defensive tackle Haloti Ngata has collapsed the pocket up the middle, but there hasn't been much contribution from the other side, or anywhere else for that matter. That has changed in the past two weeks. Johnson, in his eighth season out of Alabama, was second on the team in tackles with 10 in the Ravens' 17-10 win against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday.

At first, Terrell Suggs referred to former Raven and current San Diego Chargers outside linebacker Jarret Johnson as "my brother. " Then Suggs tried to sound indifferent about seeing his former teammate on an opposing sideline. "I might not say anything to him," said Suggs, who was drafted the same year as Johnson. "I might take a cheap shot. " But it only took Suggs' next breath for his true feelings to surface. "I'm definitely going to give him a hug," Suggs said. "Me and Jarret, we came in the same class together [2003]

In 2005, Ravens defensive end Jarret Johnson played in all 16 regular-season games, starting 12, and recorded a career-high 61 tackles. The Homestead, Fla., native is entering his fourth NFL season since being drafted in the fourth round in 2003 from Alabama. What's the strangest thing you've ever been asked to sign? Probably body parts. Arms, foreheads, things like that. What do you like to do when you're not on the football field? I'm an outdoorsy guy. I have a chocolate lab and I like to play with him. He does retrieving, if you've ever seen retrieving contests on ESPN, my dog does that stuff.

The ability to absorb punishment, overcome adversity and still perform comes with the job description of every NFL player. But for the elite teams and some unique players, that ability is what sets them apart. The Ravens and Jarret Johnson are a great case in point. Few teams in the NFL are as resilient as the Ravens this season. They have not been out of any game they played and have not lost back-to-back games, working through their share of bad breaks, misplays and breakdowns.

All roads lead to the sea for Jarret Johnson. The unassuming Ravens linebacker grew up on the water under a legacy of Florida fishermen, realized his worst fear there and now is being drawn back again. From his great-grandfather on down, men in the Johnson family have always worked on the water - first as net fishermen and later as commercial crabbers - around Cedar Key, an island community three miles off the Florida coast in the Gulf of Mexico. Johnson is perhaps the most unsung player on one of the NFL's most heralded defenses.

For three years, Paul Kruger watched Jarret Johnson do the dirty work. Setting the edge. Sacrificing his body. Sometimes chasing down quarterbacks. All the while, Kruger's position and responsibilities shifted. But now that Johnson has signed in San Diego, vacating his starting outside linebacker spot, Kruger is comfortable, confident and prepared to get filthy in the trenches, too, like his “great mentor and friend” did for nine seasons. “It's a great opportunity,” he said Thursday after the team's voluntary workout in Owings Mills, standing tall with his hands tucked into his pockets.

The fight was only a few seconds old, but there was already a mountain of humanity involved. Ravens outside linebacker Jarret Johnson started his run from 10 yards out and leaped on top of the pile with his face toward the sky. Johnson's helmet was knocked off, and as he fell toward the ground, he laughed. "Jarret is crazy but in a good sense," Ravens defensive tackle Justin Bannan said. "He loves to compete, and he is having a lot of fun this year." From training camp last season to the one in 2008, Johnson might be the Ravens' most improved player.

The Ravens may be 1-6 all time against the New England Patriots, but that one win took place in the postseason after the 2009 regular season. The Ravens traveled to Foxborough, Mass., and routed New England, 33-14, on Jan. 10, 2010. But coach John Harbaugh said that victory won't mean much to the current squad. “A lot will be made of it, but I really don't think it does mean too much,” he said Monday. “We've been over there for a number of losses, too, in the regular season. So all of that becomes part of who you are as a team.” Outside linebacker Jarret Johnson echoed that sentiment.

Jarret Johnson still grimaces when he thinks about it. For as long as he could remember, he'd been a strong guy. Some of it was country strength, the kind of muscles you build when you grow up in in a small Florida town on the Gulf of Mexico, raised by a family of commercial crabbers and fisherman. But he could always hold his own in the weight room, too, moving metal plates with relative ease as he out-worked much bigger guys on his way to an NFL career. But at the start of the 2010 season, for the first time in Johnson's life, he would ask his body to do power through workouts, and it would simply refuse.

The Ravens lost two defensive starters in outside linebacker Jarret Johnson and defensive end Cory Redding and will be without outside linebacker Terrell Suggs, a five-time Pro Bowler and the reigning NFL Defensive Player of the Year, for a good portion of the upcoming season. That would seem to put the burden on standouts like 13-time Pro Bowl inside linebacker Ray Lewis, eight-time Pro Bowl free safety Ed Reed and three-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle Haloti Ngata to maintain the defense's level of success over the years.