Jene Bramel
Footballguy
This thread will (eventually) 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.
I'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. 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 (inseason) in BOLD.
Baltimore: Josh Bynes (Ray Lewis, Dannell Ellerbe-inj)
Buffalo: Nick Barnett
Cincinnati: Rey Maualuga, Vontaze Burfict
Cleveland: D'Qwell Jackson
Denver: Von Miller*, Wes Woodyard
Houston: Connor Barwin, Whitney Mercilus*
Indianapolis: Jerrell Freeman, Dwight Freeney*
Jacksonville: Paul Posluszny, Russell Allen
Kansas City: Tamba Hali, Derrick Johnson, Justin Houston
Miami:: Karlos Dansby, Kevin Burnett
New England: Jerod Mayo, Dont'a Hightower
New York Jets: David Harris, Calvin Pace
Oakland: Miles Burris, Philip Wheeler
Pittsburgh: Lawrence Timmons, Larry Foote, James Harrison
San Diego: Takeo Spikes (Donald Butler-inj)
Tennessee: Zach Brown (Colin McCarthy-inj)
Arizona: Daryl Washington, Paris Lenon, Sam Acho*
Atlanta: Sean Weatherspoon, Stephen Nicholas
Carolina: Luke Kuechly, Thomas Davis
Chicago: Lance Briggs, Nick Roach (Brian Urlacher-inj)
Dallas: Alex Albright* (Ernie Sims-inj), Demarcus Ware, Anthony Spencer*
Detroit: Stephen Tulloch, Justin Durant*, DeAndre Levy*
Green Bay: Brad Jones, Clay Matthews
Minnesota: Chad Greenway, Jasper Brinkley*
New Orleans: Curtis Lofton
New York Giants: Michael Boley*, Chase Blackburn*
Philadelphia: DeMeco Ryans, Mychal Kendricks
St. Louis: James Laurinaitis, Jo-Lonn Dunbar
San Francisco: Patrick Willis, Navorro Bowman, Aldon Smith
Seattle: KJ Wright, Bobby Wagner
Tampa Bay: Mason Foster*, Lavonte David
Washington: London Fletcher, Perry Riley, Ryan Kerrigan
*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.
I'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. 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 (inseason) in BOLD.
Baltimore: Josh Bynes (Ray Lewis, Dannell Ellerbe-inj)
Buffalo: Nick Barnett
Cincinnati: Rey Maualuga, Vontaze Burfict
Cleveland: D'Qwell Jackson
Denver: Von Miller*, Wes Woodyard
Houston: Connor Barwin, Whitney Mercilus*
Indianapolis: Jerrell Freeman, Dwight Freeney*
Jacksonville: Paul Posluszny, Russell Allen
Kansas City: Tamba Hali, Derrick Johnson, Justin Houston
Miami:: Karlos Dansby, Kevin Burnett
New England: Jerod Mayo, Dont'a Hightower
New York Jets: David Harris, Calvin Pace
Oakland: Miles Burris, Philip Wheeler
Pittsburgh: Lawrence Timmons, Larry Foote, James Harrison
San Diego: Takeo Spikes (Donald Butler-inj)
Tennessee: Zach Brown (Colin McCarthy-inj)
Arizona: Daryl Washington, Paris Lenon, Sam Acho*
Atlanta: Sean Weatherspoon, Stephen Nicholas
Carolina: Luke Kuechly, Thomas Davis
Chicago: Lance Briggs, Nick Roach (Brian Urlacher-inj)
Dallas: Alex Albright* (Ernie Sims-inj), Demarcus Ware, Anthony Spencer*
Detroit: Stephen Tulloch, Justin Durant*, DeAndre Levy*
Green Bay: Brad Jones, Clay Matthews
Minnesota: Chad Greenway, Jasper Brinkley*
New Orleans: Curtis Lofton
New York Giants: Michael Boley*, Chase Blackburn*
Philadelphia: DeMeco Ryans, Mychal Kendricks
St. Louis: James Laurinaitis, Jo-Lonn Dunbar
San Francisco: Patrick Willis, Navorro Bowman, Aldon Smith
Seattle: KJ Wright, Bobby Wagner
Tampa Bay: Mason Foster*, Lavonte David
Washington: London Fletcher, Perry Riley, Ryan Kerrigan
*May rotate out in a small number of nickel and dime packages
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