Reading the Defense is a weekly column that considers the effects of player deployment and schematic trends on individual defensive players’ fantasy value. While analytics take hold in NFL front offices and sidelines, data-driven decision-making also benefits fantasy gamers.

Looking for Lessons

Three weeks remain in the NFL regular season while most fantasy leagues stage their playoff semifinals. As many fantasy gamers’ roster management ends, this column looks back on the 2024 season for lessons to glean for future application. This week’s edition focuses on linebackers, leaving the defensive front and secondary for the last two weeks.

Through 15 weeks, 13 linebackers among the position’s top 25 scorers also appeared on Footballguys’ leaderboard at the end of 2023. Twelve of last year’s top 25 appear outside this year’s top 25 to this point in the 2024 season. Of the dozen, half lost multiple games to injury. Five of these 6 average enough fantasy points to maintain their standing. Before breaking an arm, Alex Anzalone was scoring fantasy points at a rate closer to his 2022 numbers than 2023.

Among defenders, linebackers are most likely to miss chunks of time due to injury. Intentionally colliding with other players at running speed puts linebackers at risk of multi-week absences. This accentuates the need to carry depth at the position in deeper leagues where reliable producers from the waiver wire are rare.

Does Talent Matter?

#Colts LB Zaire Franklin:

“My rookie year I don’t think I took it as serious as I should’ve taken it, and I lost my spot … Took me four years to (start again).”

“I don’t think (Anthony Richardson’s) situation gonna be that way. … But I did share with him … about my journey.” pic.twitter.com/dLh7uTJ3kO

— James Boyd (@RomeovilleKid) October 31, 2024

The top-scoring fantasy linebacker, Zaire Franklin, finished second overall last year. A 7th-round pick in 2018, Franklin was a special teamer throughout his rookie contract. Defensive coordinator Gus Bradley arrived in Indianapolis in 2022 and identified Franklin as his signal caller. Franklin overtook former All-Pro, oft-injured Shaq Leonard and made Bobby Okereke expendable. Pro Football Focus has graded Franklin’s season-long performance at or below 60 for each of his three seasons as a starter.

Germaine Pratt is similarly graded by PFF for 2024 as well as 2023. He was Footballguys’ 26th-scoring linebacker last year and finds himself 6th currently, due in part to increased playing time. Pratt assumed Cincinnati’s green dot from an injured Logan Wilson, one of 2023’s top linebackers unable to repeat.

The great Bobby Wagner has maintained his high level of play but has faded as a fantasy asset. Wagner sits at 18th among linebackers in fantasy points through 15 weeks. He hasn’t ranked this low at season’s end since 2014.

Christian Rozeboom and Micah McFadden haven’t been great, but they’ve played well enough to earn most of their defenses’ snaps. Quay Walker is posting Franklin/Pratt-level grades as well. His performance has had fans howling but kept him on the field full-time while relaying signals in the first year of Jeff Hafley’s defense. Green Bay rookie linebacker Edgerrin Cooper is earning higher PFF grades and the hearts of Packers’ fans, but his role remains rotational.

Risers and Upstarts

.@chargers @daiyan_henley11 Daiyan Henley play ; game in, game out is one reason this #BoltUp Defense is so vastly improved. Looks like a rising star to me. #BaldysBreakdowns pic.twitter.com/IqiTj1zCEb

— Brian Baldinger (@BaldyNFL) November 14, 2024

Some players build up full-time roles while others burst onto the scene. In 2023, Bobby Okereke, Quincy Williams, Azeez Al-Shaair, Ernest Jones IV, and Kaden Elliss were all players who excited fantasy gamers. Each had shown upside in 2022 and appeared ready for full-time roles. Terrel Bernard and Robert Spillane, meanwhile, emerged as fantasy LB1s with minimal track records in previous seasons.

If 2023 was a season for risers, the upstarts took 2024. Sophomores Daiyan Henley and DeMarvion Overshown have broken out after not getting onto the field in 2023. Dallas’s Overshown was hurt all last year, but Henley backed up veterans for the regime that drafted him. The Chargers’ 2024 defense is much improved, and Henley is playing a leading role.

Micah McFadden is a riser, a young player who has steadily earned reps. The Giants’ 2022 fifth-round pick played full-time for the first time in his career in Week 14 in place of an injured Bobby Okereke. He held up against the Saints, but the Ravens exposed him last week. He allowed a 156.2 tackle rating and missed 3 tackles in a rout. A reasonable preseason question will be whether McFadden can take another step forward in 2025 or remain mired in LB3 territory. His last three games this season represent important data points.

Nakobe Dean, another third-year player, might be deemed a riser. He started four games in 2022 but was lost to injury for the season in Week 9. He was widely thought to be behind Devin White on the depth chart throughout August 2024. Dean has nevertheless played nearly full-time all season and appears fourth on Footballguys’ leaderboard of linebackers.

Germaine Pratt is one of five players with more than three years of NFL experience to crack the top 25 for the first time. Reserve Jamien Sherwood replaced C.J. Mosley in line-ups of the Jets and fantasy gamers one-for-one after an early-season injury. A college safety, Sherwood has played well enough to land a lucrative contract next March. Given the Jets’ investments in Mosley and Quincy Williams, that deal could take him out of New York.

The aforementioned Christian Rozeboom is a former undrafted free agent in his fourth season at age 27. Rozeboom got on the field in a part-time role alongside Ernest Jones IV last year but lost time over poor play, ceding snaps to classic two-down thumper Troy Reeder during the Rams’ unlikely 2023 playoff push.

Reeder earned the green dot and a full-time role to open 2024. Reeder, however, went on injured/reserve in Week 8, opening the door for Rozeboom. Playing for his next contract, Rozeboom has been better in 2024; however, he has yet to play 100 percent of his unit’s snaps.

The Rams could have tendered Rozeboom as a restricted free agent but brought him back on a cheaper one-year deal worth roughly the veteran minimum. The move reflected both Rozeboom’s value and the Rams’ interest in investing in inside linebackers. All of their inside linebackers are former undrafted free agents. If half of the top 25 fantasy linebackers of 2024 won’t repeat in 2025, Rozeboom is one of the easiest fades.

The 29-year-old E.J. Speed was one of several linebackers highlighted in an earlier edition of Reading the Defense for contributing to fantasy line-ups while playing poorly. He has held his job and his status as an LB1. Speed’s numbers since his age-26 season in 2021 parallel a riser. Like Rozeboom, Speed is playing for his next contract, but the Colt will turn 30 in June. His fantasy relevance might hinge on Gus Bradley’s future and future plans for his defense. For 2024, however, those who overlooked Speed’s steady growth in snaps and tackles, including this writer, overlooked a value on draft day. Speed was the 37th linebacker off the board, on average, according to ADP data collected by The IDP Show, 30 spots below his current standing.