2021 Every Down Linebackers (Through Week 18)
Understanding and staying up-to-date on which linebackers stay on the field in an every down capacity is critical to succeeding in IDP Fantasy Football.
Long gone are days of the “base” defense with three to four linebackers on the field at one time. In fact, teams only had three linebackers on the field about 15% of the time in 2020. Why is this?
Well, the game has rapidly evolved over the last 5-10 seasons with offenses moving more and more to a pass-heavy approach. This, in turn, has forced defensive coordinators to employ a much heavier usage of nickel packages as they look to maximize the number of strong pass coverage defenders in one personnel grouping.
So what is a Nickel defense? Simply stated, the nickel defense is a defensive alignment that uses five defensive backs. The fifth defensive back is referred to as the “nickelback.” This defensive look typically has four down linemen and only two linebackers on the field at the same time (4-2-5). As mentioned previously, these new looks are being utilized to get the best combination of speed, versatility, and coverage ability on the field at the same time to defend against multiple receiver sets.
We’ve even seen more teams employing a heavier usage of Dime defense (6 defensive backs on the field) the past couple of seasons to further enable defending the pass. The Packers were the best example of this last year as their favorite package was the “big Dime” which employs just 1 “traditional” LB. This was also an attempt to try and work around their deficiencies at the that particular position.
To help further contextualize how dramatic this shift to DB-heavy/LB-limited packages has been over the last several years, I’ve broken out defensive personnel grouping by usage from the 2019 season (2020 data typically becomes available in July). As you can see, defenses spent over 70% of their snaps in Nickel or Dime setups. Meanwhile, “base” defenses are only being employed about 25% of the time.
Long gone are days of the “base” defense with three to four linebackers on the field at one time. In fact, teams only had three linebackers on the field about 15% of the time in 2020. Why is this?
Well, the game has rapidly evolved over the last 5-10 seasons with offenses moving more and more to a pass-heavy approach. This, in turn, has forced defensive coordinators to employ a much heavier usage of nickel packages as they look to maximize the number of strong pass coverage defenders in one personnel grouping.
So what is a Nickel defense? Simply stated, the nickel defense is a defensive alignment that uses five defensive backs. The fifth defensive back is referred to as the “nickelback.” This defensive look typically has four down linemen and only two linebackers on the field at the same time (4-2-5). As mentioned previously, these new looks are being utilized to get the best combination of speed, versatility, and coverage ability on the field at the same time to defend against multiple receiver sets.
We’ve even seen more teams employing a heavier usage of Dime defense (6 defensive backs on the field) the past couple of seasons to further enable defending the pass. The Packers were the best example of this last year as their favorite package was the “big Dime” which employs just 1 “traditional” LB. This was also an attempt to try and work around their deficiencies at the that particular position.
To help further contextualize how dramatic this shift to DB-heavy/LB-limited packages has been over the last several years, I’ve broken out defensive personnel grouping by usage from the 2019 season (2020 data typically becomes available in July). As you can see, defenses spent over 70% of their snaps in Nickel or Dime setups. Meanwhile, “base” defenses are only being employed about 25% of the time.
| 2019 Defensive Personnel Groupings | ||||
| Personnel | 2018 Pct | 2019 Pct | Difference | 2019 DVOA |
| Nickel | 60.5% | 55.9% | -4.6% | 1.5% |
| Base | 25.0% | 26.7% | +1.7% | -3.9% |
| Dime+ | 13.3% | 16.0% | +2.7% | 3.0% |
| Goal line | 0.8% | 0.8% | +0.0% | -1.9% |
| Big | 0.3% | 0.6% | +0.3% | -19.5% |
All this means that linebackers who don’t play in subpackages are in danger of missing a significant portion of their team’s defensive snaps. Since this dramatic decrease in playing time is a huge blow to a player’s value, it becomes critical that we continually track which players are staying on the field on a near every down basis.
That said, below is a list of the current projected every down linebackers in the league.
NOTE: The data is being displayed on the site using an embedded Google Document. Some readers may have issues viewing the tables depending on a myriad of different of factors (e.g. browser, device, method of viewing). This said, I’ve made the data available via a direct link and/or a PDF of the Google Sheet which you can find directly below.
COLOR KEY
*PLAYERS IN BOLD ARE NEW ADDITIONS TO THE INDIVIDUAL TEAM LISTS FROM THE PREVIOUS WEEK
**PLAYERS IN GREEN ARE PROJECTED TO WEAR THE GREEN DOT AND CALL THE DEFENSIVE PLAYS
***PLAYERS IN BLUE HAVE FAIRLY SIGNIFICANT VOLATILITY REGARDING THEIR CURRENT EVERY DOWN STATUS
**PLAYERS IN GREEN ARE PROJECTED TO WEAR THE GREEN DOT AND CALL THE DEFENSIVE PLAYS
***PLAYERS IN BLUE HAVE FAIRLY SIGNIFICANT VOLATILITY REGARDING THEIR CURRENT EVERY DOWN STATUS
This article will be updated as needed every Tuesday during the regular season.