Jene Bramel
Footballguy
This thread will be linked in the pinned IDP Warehouse thread and will be bumped with every update to this initial post (usually on Wednesdays during the regular season.
We've proven in recent seasons that dismissing the importance of knowing which linebackers come off the field on passing downs is a recipe for statistical disaster. Backers who don't play in their team's subpackages often miss at least 40% of their team's defensive snaps over a full season and may miss 70-80% of their team's snaps in any given week. This will be the third season that we'll closely track each team's every-down backers in this thread.
We'll use a combination of film study and internet resources to confirm these names during the season, but during the preseason months, this list will be our best guess at which backers would play every-down if the season started today. Many situations are far from certain and obviously much will change here after the draft, but I’ll work the pre-draft post from each team’s current depth chart. For the purposes of discussion, we’ll list any linebacker expected to take at least 80% of his team’s snaps each week regardless of subpackage usage.
Recent week's changes in BOLD.
Baltimore: Ray Lewis, Jarrett Johnson
Buffalo: Paul Posluszny, Chris Kelsay
Cincinnati: Dhani Jones
Cleveland: Matt Roth, Scott Fujita (inj)
Denver: DJ Williams, Mario Haggan, Robert Ayers*, Jason Hunter*
Houston: Brian Cushing, Kevin Bentley
Indianapolis: Gary Brackett, Clint Session (inj)
Jacksonville: Daryl Smith, Justin Durant (inj - Kirk Morrison)
Kansas City: Tamba Hali, Derrick Johnson
Miami:: Karlos Dansby, Cameron Wake
New England: Jerod Mayo
New York Jets: Bart Scott, David Harris, Calvin Pace
Oakland: Rolando McClain
Pittsburgh: James Harrison, Lamarr Woodley, Lawrence Timmons, James Farrior
San Diego: Stephen Cooper, Shaun Phillips, Kevin Burnett
Tennessee: Stephen Tulloch, Will Witherspoon
Arizona: Paris Lenon, Clark Haggans, Joey Porter
Atlanta: Curtis Lofton
Carolina: Jon Beason, James Anderson
Chicago: Lance Briggs, Brian Urlacher
Dallas: Bradie James*, Keith Brooking*, Demarcus Ware, Anthony Spencer
Detroit: DeAndre Levy, Julian Peterson
Green Bay: AJ Hawk, Clay Matthews, Desmond Bishop*
Minnesota: EJ Henderson, Chad Greenway
New Orleans: Jonathan Vilma, Scott Shanle
New York Giants: Michael Boley
Philadelphia: Jamar Chaney, Ernie Sims*
St. Louis: James Laurinaitis
San Francisco: Patrick Willis, Takeo Spikes*
Seattle: Lofa Tatupu, Aaron Curry
Tampa Bay: Barrett Ruud, Geno Hayes
Washington: London Fletcher, Brian Orakpo, Rocky McIntosh
*May rotate out in a small number of nickel and dime packages
We've proven in recent seasons that dismissing the importance of knowing which linebackers come off the field on passing downs is a recipe for statistical disaster. Backers who don't play in their team's subpackages often miss at least 40% of their team's defensive snaps over a full season and may miss 70-80% of their team's snaps in any given week. This will be the third season that we'll closely track each team's every-down backers in this thread.
We'll use a combination of film study and internet resources to confirm these names during the season, but during the preseason months, this list will be our best guess at which backers would play every-down if the season started today. Many situations are far from certain and obviously much will change here after the draft, but I’ll work the pre-draft post from each team’s current depth chart. For the purposes of discussion, we’ll list any linebacker expected to take at least 80% of his team’s snaps each week regardless of subpackage usage.
Recent week's changes in BOLD.
Baltimore: Ray Lewis, Jarrett Johnson
Buffalo: Paul Posluszny, Chris Kelsay
Cincinnati: Dhani Jones
Cleveland: Matt Roth, Scott Fujita (inj)
Denver: DJ Williams, Mario Haggan, Robert Ayers*, Jason Hunter*
Houston: Brian Cushing, Kevin Bentley
Indianapolis: Gary Brackett, Clint Session (inj)
Jacksonville: Daryl Smith, Justin Durant (inj - Kirk Morrison)
Kansas City: Tamba Hali, Derrick Johnson
Miami:: Karlos Dansby, Cameron Wake
New England: Jerod Mayo
New York Jets: Bart Scott, David Harris, Calvin Pace
Oakland: Rolando McClain
Pittsburgh: James Harrison, Lamarr Woodley, Lawrence Timmons, James Farrior
San Diego: Stephen Cooper, Shaun Phillips, Kevin Burnett
Tennessee: Stephen Tulloch, Will Witherspoon
Arizona: Paris Lenon, Clark Haggans, Joey Porter
Atlanta: Curtis Lofton
Carolina: Jon Beason, James Anderson
Chicago: Lance Briggs, Brian Urlacher
Dallas: Bradie James*, Keith Brooking*, Demarcus Ware, Anthony Spencer
Detroit: DeAndre Levy, Julian Peterson
Green Bay: AJ Hawk, Clay Matthews, Desmond Bishop*
Minnesota: EJ Henderson, Chad Greenway
New Orleans: Jonathan Vilma, Scott Shanle
New York Giants: Michael Boley
Philadelphia: Jamar Chaney, Ernie Sims*
St. Louis: James Laurinaitis
San Francisco: Patrick Willis, Takeo Spikes*
Seattle: Lofa Tatupu, Aaron Curry
Tampa Bay: Barrett Ruud, Geno Hayes
Washington: London Fletcher, Brian Orakpo, Rocky McIntosh
*May rotate out in a small number of nickel and dime packages
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