The best linebackers in todays league are elite coverage players, but they can also affect the game in other ways. The Georgia Bulldogs have a 12 players participating at the 2023 NFL combine. The Penn State product ranked No. 8:44 am ET. 2021 PFF grade: 83.5 (N/A). Davis is a player people keep expecting to regress, but he just hasn't. There are a lot of unknowns in this group due to inexperience. Al-Shaair is in line to get paid as a free agent after teammatesFred Warner and Dre Greenlawfind themselves among the 16 highest-paid off-ball linebackers in the NFL. Vander Esch quietly played some good football in 2022 after signing a one-year flier to return to the Cowboys following a free agency period that didnt pan out as hed hoped. The Saints had been looking for someone to play the linebacker position opposite him for years and seem to have found one in Pete Werner, who was outstanding as a rookie in 2021. In his recent post on linebackers, PFF's Sam Monson ranked Nick Bolton No. Nick Bolton and Willie Gay are two young linebackers who came on strong last season. January 18, 2023 8:22 pm ET. 6-keys: media/spln/nfl/reg/free/stories, By pressing sign up, I confirm that I have read and agree to the. Although Wagner might be on the downswing of a great career, this unit could push for a top-five spot by the season's end if he rebounds after a poor 2021. No linebacker recorded more coverage snaps than Warner in all of 2021. Perhaps most importantly in todays NFL, Tranquill followed up his 74.6 coverage grade in 2021 with a career-high 75.4 mark, with his 18 stops in coverage a top-20 figure among off-ball linebackers. He may be coming off one of his worst statistical seasons in recent memory, but he also missed five games with injury. 2021 PFF grade: 53.0 (50th of 89). He tallied a career-high six pass breakups in 2022. Oluokun leads the way for a very underwhelming free-agent class at off-ball linebacker, though his timing of reaching unrestricted free agency could work out nicely in his favor. He might not even start this season. Josey Jewell and Jonas Griffith should be the starters, with free agent signing Alex Singleton looking for snaps, as well. 11 among linebackers,) his AV of 8 was tied for No. 23 in 2021. His PFF grade of 77.9 ranked eighth last year among linebackers, and he once again showed he's a well-rounded linebacker that doesn't get the kind of credit he deserves. By Marc. Next to him is the underrated Josh Bynes, who returned to Baltimore in 2021 after one season in Cincinnati. Now, it remains to be seen if Campbell can replicate his 2021 campaign, but based off of how he played last year, Campbell deserves a place on this list. A position of concern and potential weakness heading into last season has become a real strength for Kansas City. Mosley, Foye Oluokun. He didn't end the 2021 campaign in the best fashion, but did rebound to record 13 combined tackles, two tackles for loss, four QB hits and two passes defensed in Tampa Bay's two postseason games. Indianapolis, Indiana, USA; Indianapolis Colts outside linebacker Darius Leonard (53) reacts to a play in the first half against the Las Vegas Raiders at Lucas Oil Stadium. The rest of 1A should surprise no one, with this group almost filling out the consensus top-five linebackers in ADP terms,. Hes earned himself a nice raise. heading into 2022, here's how each team's linebacking corps stacks up. His 18 quarterback pressures ranked fourth among off-ball linebackers, as Patriots head coach Bill Belichick continued to deploy the 6-foot-3, 260-pounder all over the place in his constantly evolving defense. NFL NFL Home Tools NFL Scores NFL Premium Stats NFL Player Grades Free Agent Rankings QB Annual 2022 New: Draft Mode! 17 linebacker in the NFL going into 2022, placing him in the "young. Tae Crowder and Micah McFadden will look to compete for the spot opposite Martinez. As stated in the article, Galina only included true off-ball . The Rank value requires a minimum number of snaps played. Vander Esch has had an up and down first four years in the NFL, but the talent that made him a first-round pick in 2018 still flashes on occasion and will certainly draw attention. Here are the top off-ball linebackers slated to hit free agency in 2022. His All-Pro season in 2019 was special, but some might have thought it was just a one-year thing. Final Season Stats. Lloyd, who earned a 90.0-plus grade at Utah in 2021, does look set to start. Chicago signed Nicholas Morrow from Las Vegas to fill the spot next to Smith for 2022. 2021 Snaps: 712 Still, its an interesting group because of Ernest Jones, especially after his very good Super Bowl performance as he came back from an injury-plagued season. Roquan Smith has had an up-and-down NFL career so far, and the team will be hoping he can bounce back from a 47.1 grade last season. Now its just a matter of how nice itll be. The linebacker position in the game of football is one of the most important. Still one of the more underrated players in the league, This is a precarious spot for the Packers to be in, even with 2021 All-Pro. Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports. If he can play more consistently week to week, teams may view him as a low-risk, high-reward option in a weak linebacker class. The grades for the Detroit Lions in their 9-8 campaign offer up an analytically-based glimpse of how the Lions performed. The Ravens are still looking for that breakout year from Patrick Queen after two subpar seasons. AVG. Anthony Brown is an okay slot and Kelvin Joseph was actually the highest rated CB. 1. The Titans ask a lot of their off-ball linebackers, and Long can do it all. Smith is a complete athletic projection. 6 defense in the league last year, and Smith was a big reason why. The redshirt junior is a dominant run-stuffer, as his 49 run-defense stops in 2022 ranked second among all linebackers in the country while his 20 tackles for loss/no-gain were tied for third. Davids 88.5 coverage grade this season ranked second among off-ball linebackers, and his elite 93.0 mark over the past four seasons is the top mark at the position. He was good as a true linebacker, but his ability to play two different roles on any given snap made him special and provided a hybrid ability that caused problems for offenses. Jewell is actually more of an all-around linebacker, but run defense has been his best area in the NFL. Better luck with his health led to a respectable 63.8 overall grade and 72.6 pass-rush grade in 2021. In May, Sam Monson of PFF ranked as the league's No.16 linebacker coming into the 2022 NFL season. There's no way he was going to get better, right? Last but certainly not least, Pratt also peaked at the right time, with his 90.1 overall grade since Week 8 the top mark among linebackers. But in a vacuum, Much of this unit's potential lies with third-round rookie. 2022 NFL Linebacker Rankings 1. "Latest Update" refers to when we last checked for . What a find he was for the Packers last year. Parsons took the NFL by storm in his rookie season, recording 84 combined tackles and a Dallas Cowboys rookie record 13 sacks. Despite what PFF says, I don't think there are that many more linebackers who are better in coverage than Kendricks. 2021 Snaps: 82 Like the Chiefs, the Bengals also went into last season with a lot of unknowns surrounding the linebacker position but found a really good pair in, A position of weakness for the Eagles in 2021 might turn into a position of strength in 2022 with the additions of rookie, The Ravens are still looking for that breakout year from. The first week of March will see the NFL Combine which will be followed by College Pro Days. Oluokun is coming off a PFF run-defense grade of 44.0 and a coverage grade of 54.4. The Super Bowl has come and gone in 2022 and we have started to turn our attention to the next football season. Campbells 90.4 tackling grade is his fifth straight such mark above 75.0, and that sure tackling goes a long way in Green Bay. Cody Barton is another interesting player who will finally get a chance to start this season. 2 in the NFL, only trailing Fred Warner and the San Francisco 49ers. With that in mind, some of these units have fewer members than others. While Mike Zimmer is gone, new defensive coordinator Ed Donatell is an experienced coach who can get the most out of Kendricks and this defense as a whole. Rookie Devin Lloydand sophomore Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah both project to be every-down linebackers on ideal defenses for expected production. Perryman was signed to a two-year, $6.085 million contract before the 2021 season and promptly traded to the Las Vegas Raiders before the first week of the campaign. Former Penn State linebacker Micah Parsons just wrapped up his second season in the NFL, and he continues to leave little doubt the Dallas Cowboys made the smart decision using a first-round draft pick on him. To create this list, we took into consideration basic statistics, Pro Football Reference/Stathead's Approximate Value, PFF grades and a guess on how the player will perform moving forward. 2021 Snaps: 783 This ranking may be a surprise after the Seahawks lost future Hall of Famer Bobby Wagner in free agency this offseason, but Wagner seemed to be on the downslope of his career. 3) Demario Davis, New Orleans Saints. 6 in the NFL in sacks and No. Pro Football Focus has finalized the regular season grades for the 2022 NFL season. Leighton Vander Esch has not lived up to the hype he created for himself after a monstrous rookie season, and so we may see another linebacker eventually fill in for him. They're both veteran defenders, and they happened to lead the team in snaps played last season. Jewell is the other Denver off-ball linebacker who missed the majority of the 2021 season with a torn pectoral muscle, but hes three years younger than Johnson. He put forth a monster rookie season in 2019 but hasnt quite attained the same highs in subsequent seasons. 2022 NFL Draft Position Rankings: Linebackers By Michael Renner Apr 22, 2022 Devin Lloyd and Nakobe Dean will be the talk of the class and likely the only two first-round linebacker prospects in 2022, but there's still a lot of talent at the position on Days 2 and 3 of the draft. One of the best off-ball linebackers of his generation, David is still playing at an extremely high level and may benefit from, Okereke stepped up in a major way in the absence of fellow off-ball linebacker, The 2022 season was Tranquills first as a full-time starter following. Meanwhile, David will have to get it there himself, given that the Bucs defense wasnt exactly bereft of talent last season.
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