• Zack Baun tops off a breakout season as the best tackler at the position: Baun’s special season translated to high PFF grades and IDP production.

• Tremaine Edmunds and T.J. Edwards will hope for better results next season: A new defensive coordinator will hopefully turn things around in 2025, as both Chicago Bears linebackers under-delivered in 2024.

• 2025 NFL Draft season is here: Try PFF’s best-in-class Mock Draft Simulator and learn about 2025’s top prospects while trading and drafting for your favorite NFL team.

Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

It’s easy at the end of each NFL season to look at where players ranked in fantasy football, but understanding why they finished where they did is often more important when projecting future production.

For the linebacker position, tackles are a huge part of IDP success. Knowing which linebackers created more tackles for themselves while identifying those who delivered as expected, or even below expectations, can help us better identify draft targets next season.

All linebacker-expected tackle figures are derived from combing through each player’s profile and situation. After we dive into their alignments, run and pass splits, coverage types and snaps played, we then compare their efficiency to the larger pool of their peers.

Starting at the top, these are the linebackers who performed above and beyond expectations in 2024 when it came to tackling, with a combination of old names and a lot of new names appearing on this list after the position went through many changes this year.

Top Performers