- Several new names emerged last season to contend for 2025 LB1: Joining Zack Baun, the likes of Jamien Sherwood, Daiyan Henley, and Blake Cashman all offer the profiles to be great IDP producers.
- All signs point to a breakout: Jack Campbell and Edgerrin Cooper are two of the biggest IDP risers coming out of 2024 and are primed to deliver high-end fantasy production.
- PFF+ gives you the Fantasy blueprint: Test strategies with the No. 1 Mock Draft Simulator, use the Live Draft Assistant for pick suggestions and project next-round availability, and unlock industry-leading rankings.
Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes
Breaking fantasy football rankings down into tiers helps fantasy managers better understand what separates each group and how to value each player at the position for this coming season.
Editor's note: You can view all past top IDP scorers, scoring settings, and production versus expected numbers from 2022 through 2024 for free here.
TIER 1: The locked-in top options
The top-12 linebackers for IDP are mostly in tackle-friendly defenses and are historically exceptional tacklers for the position. For those that aren’t in the above-average projected defenses for tackle production based on scheme, they make up for that by being far-and-away the best tacklers at the position, which is the bucket where the top-three in this tier fall heading into 2025.
Zack Baun joining the ranks of Roquan Smith and Zaire Franklin was not an expected outcome heading into last season, but Baun delivered the ultimate breakout season in 2024 by leading the position in PFF grade (90.1), coverage grade (91.7), tackles versus expected (+30.6) and IDP scoring (262.8). Baun is going to get drafted very highly – that’s unavoidable – and even if he’s bound to regress in those totals, he’s still a great bet for high-end production in 2025.
Jamien Sherwood, Blake Cashman and Daiyan Henley all finished no worse than 70th percentile in tackles versus expected last season and were all highly productive for fantasy as a result. All three also play in defenses that rank top-eight in projected tackle efficiency for the position based on expected defensive scheme. Cashman, specifically, is one of the most interesting names should he stay healthy, as he’s been a high-end tackler in each of the past two seasons, even ranking 97th percentile in tackles versus expected in 2023. Confidence in Cashman comes from his high-end tackling in an ideal defense for linebacker tackle efficiency with Brian Flores deploying a very zone-heavy defense in 2024.
Jack Campbell is primed for a breakout IDP season after taking over the team’s LB1 role late last year, not just in Alex Anzalone’s absence, but once Anzalone was back in the lineup as well, Campbell took on a 100%-snap role and remained in that role. This creates an ideal projection for IDP heading into Year 3 for Campbell, who has constantly delivered high-end tackle production relative to his role, ranking 92nd percentile in tackles versus expected in 2023 and 95th percentile in 2024. Don’t miss out on Campbell’s breakout IDP season by waiting on him in drafts because this is a new ranking for him, and instead, get ahead of the curve by targeting an elite tackler in a full-time role early in drafts.
The last two names worth highlighting in this tier are two potential bounce-back candidates in Terrel Bernard and Foyesade Oluokun. Bernard had a great 2023 campaign when he emerged as a weekly IDP starter, even ranking 89th percentile in tackles versus expected. Bernard dealt with injuries and missed time in 2024 so he dropped off enough that he might not be viewed as having LB1 potential, but after a big pay day this offseason, playing in a tackle-friendly defense as the team’s top linebacker, and a history of high-end tackling ability, Bernard should be back in the LB1 conversation this season.
Oluokun had a similarly disappointing 2024 season as Bernard partly due to missed time due to injury but more importantly, his usage was shifted significantly from what he’s typically been deployed as a more traditional full-time off-ball linebacker. This included being rotated off the field for entire drives at times to playing a ton of snaps on the defensive line for a stretch of games as well, both of which are killers for tackle efficiency. With a new defensive coordinator coming in to ideally fix that usage, expect Oluokun to return to LB1 production, even if it’s not that of the “three-peating” LB1 overall that he was from 2021-2023. He should return to being a top-12 IDP linebacker.
Tier 2: Expected full-time starters with LB1 potential
Having a locked-in full-time role remains the bare minimum to make it into the top-24 IDP linebackers, and where this group separates itself from the remaining full-time starters is by playing in ideal roles for tackle production.
Edgerrin Cooper is in a similarly great breakout position as the previously mentioned Jack Campbell in Tier 1, as he took on a full-time role to close out last season, and now there’s likely no turning back as he heads into Year 2. Cooper played a full-time role in Weeks 17, 18, and the team’s lone playoff game last season after previously being a rotational piece in the Green Bay Packers defense. Cooper comes in slightly lower than Campbell because only one of those games came with Quay Walker also in the lineup, though that was in the playoffs. Expect a much bigger season for Cooper after he earned a top-five overall PFF grade (84.0) as a rookie.
The Denver Broncos offer one of the more intriguing linebacker corps with Dre Greenlaw and Alex Singleton, as both have been high-end IDP producers in the past and have full-time potential but are coming off major injuries that create risk in investing too highly in both players. Singleton remains in this second tier as the league’s most efficient tackler whenever he’s on the field. It appears that he’ll be good to go for Week 1, so expectations remain high. Even on just under 200 defensive snaps last season, Singleton still ranked 83rd percentile in tackles versus expected and never ranked lower than 99th percentile in that regard from 2021 through 2023, so getting him back healthy offers high-end potential for IDP. Greenlaw suffered an injury (quadriceps) earlier in the offseason, but he did return to practice last week, which is a good sign that he’ll be ready to go for the start of the season.
Several new names join this second tier as the biggest risers from training camp and preseason information, including rookie second-round pick Carson Schwesinger, who looks to be the green-dot linebacker in Cleveland following Jordan Hicks‘ retirement. Schwesinger has just one year of starting experience coming out of college and was an elite tackler, even ranking 100th percentile among linebacker prospects since 2018 in career tackle rate. While tackle rate by itself isn’t a stable college-to-NFL metric, his starting job as a full-time player is enough to get excited about for IDP, and if he can produce at a tackle rate anywhere close to his college average (18.8%), then he could be in for a massive Year 1.
The other new names include Jack Sanborn, Christian Rozeboom, Nate Landman and Mack Wilson – all of whom appear to be taking over full-time roles in their respective defenses this season. They have only recently earned these roles in training camp, and if they can hold onto those spots for the entire year, we’re looking at some of the best sleeper IDP options for 2025 as they cost very little in drafts at the moment.
Tier 3: Expected full-time starters with slightly lower expectations
This third tier offers several likely full-time starting linebackers, though they either come with question marks and/or low-end efficiency but could also be seen as values to target in drafts considering their projected snap share.
The first player who stands out that likely isn’t going to be a value in 2025 drafts is Frankie Luvu – who, while delivering a great IDP season last year, finishing as the overall LB16, was able to do so on the back of some unstable production, such as eight sacks on the year. The concern for Luvu is not just the instability in his sack numbers, but the lack of consistency in his tackle production, as a big part of his role in Dan Quinn’s defense comes from him lining up on the defensive line and rushing the passer, which typically saps tackle efficiency. This was the case in 2024 as well, where Luvu finished with just an 8.6% tackle rate (even lower than the average safety) and ranked second percentile in tackles versus expected (-35.4). That creates a very low weekly production floor for IDP when compared to the high-end tacklers, and although the sacks can be great when they happen, they’re much harder to predict which weeks those sacks will come, which is why he’s not ideal for a top-24 IDP linebacker in weekly redraft formats.
There are several darkhorse LB1 values in this tier where we don’t necessarily know exactly what they can provide in terms of production relative to their peers, but they’re in a good position to do so heading into this season. This includes two rookies, Jihaad Campbell and Demetrius Knight Jr., who are primed to take over for missing starters – Campbell for the injured Nakobe Dean in Philadelphia, and Knight for the recently released Germaine Pratt in Cincinnati.
For those fading the position early, this is the range where some of the surprise performers at the position will likely come from by the end of the 2025 season.
Tier 4: NFL starters without a guarantee for a full-time role
This fourth tier essentially wraps up the rest of our projected starters heading into Week 1, though they all are at least looking unlikely to play full-time roles or have question marks about whether they can hold those roles for an entire season.
This includes some fallers in the rankings, like Devin Lloyd and Akeem Davis-Gaither, for two different reasons. Lloyd’s usage in the preseason indicates that he’ll be a part of a rotation with other linebackers on the team (Ventrell Miller, Jack Kiser), and even when he is on the field, he’s unlikely to play every down. And for Davis-Gaither, it’s clear that the Arizona Cardinals are not viewing him as a full-time player next to Mack Wilson, as Davis-Gaither ended up being rotated off in certain situations throughout his preseason action, indicating that he’ll likely do so in the regular season as well, while Wilson is the top IDP option in Arizona now.
Tier 5: The names to watch
The final tier houses either a team’s current projected LB3 who has a shot at winning a starting job as LB2 or is in a position to get on the field enough in base packages to serve as a very deep league IDP option, if needed. The lone exception is Nakobe Dean, who would likely be set to start in a full-time role alongside Baun for the Philadelphia Eagles, but a late-season torn patellar tendon could keep him from seeing the field for a chunk of the 2025 season. Unless he gets healthy in time to take that starting role back before Week 1, Dean should only be considered an IR stash at this point in the offseason.
Several experienced veteran free agents (Anthony Walker, Josey Jewell, Eric Kendricks, Kyzir White and Ja’Whaun Bentley) are also hanging around out there with the potential to steal a job from one of the less-experienced players currently penciled into a starting role. However, with no real news around them at the moment, they are nothing more than speculative and hopeful additions to IDP rosters.
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