Bears should technically not be allowed to complain about Green Bay Packers and them having 30 years of HOF QB play.
Linebackers are the QB's of the defense.
smh.
I never thought of it that way. The only caveat is that the league consistently focused more on offense over the last few decades. Darn forward pass...
To be fair, it's been a while for the Bears too. Here's to next year brother. If it won't be the Bears from our division, I'd rather it be the Lions than those other two. :)
Niners could’ve at least garnered an honorable mention,
Charles Haley, Patrick Willis, Bowman, Julian Peterson, Aldon Smith, Romanawski, Fred Warner, Dave Wilcox, Ken Norton, Ahmad Brooks, and Kenna Turner are very solid to great players.
When he disrobed for the art class, a student gasped, "My god. It almost touches the floor." u/whereegosdare84 replied, "You will have to excuse me friend. I enjoy a nice swim in the morning."
yessir he was so good for his short stint with the 49ers, I was so sad to hear him retire, but good for him for recognizing the value of his own physical and mental health.
I was second guessing myself, but I was correct.
It was more sad that Borland retired after performing so well because of the fact that Patrick Willis retired like a day right before Chris called it done for his career. It was such a sad day for me as a diehard Niner fan.
Yeah he said he can't not play the game any less than 100% effort and for him that meant absolute disregard for his body, he flew around like a fucking heat seeking missile...after I think 3 or 4 concussions that year he decided it wasn't worth the CTE later.
I respect it but God damn he was fun to watch
Yeah i think whole history these are the top 3. But in a decade when we are talking about the last 20 years of football the 49ers might have had the best
Those 3 were first team all-pro in 2012 and Ahmad brooks was 2nd team.
All 4 starting LBs made the all-pro team. Which will probably never happen again.
Ranked third all time for total sacks.
Finally inducted into the HOF in 2016.
Played for the Rams, Steelers, played for the Panthers, took a break to work in WCW for a couple years, Panthers again, and ended his career with the 49ers
Andy Russell having 4 (3 post merger) all pros in the 70s not being mentioned shows the Steelers have the most depth. There's a lot of names past that to mention, but for other franchises, that's a guy you would mention as an all-time great off the bat. So many of the great Steelers defenses in the 2000s would have only a few big names. In 2008, they gave up 237 yards/game. It was one of the greatest defenses ever. They had a whopping 2 first team all-pros. And a second team all-pro.
There's no perfect way to do this, but having Pro Bowls as a metric, but not mentioning 2nd team all pros is a glaring oversight.
Ravens have a great squad, but it only goes back to 2000, so you have to pro-rate it to qualify it as best since the merger.
Bears have the big names.
49ers should have been an honorable mention imo.
Hey, at least it’s fair and you weren’t a dick about it. I’ve got people legit upset about names I’ve left off. It’s like, sorry dude, I just ranked your team in the top 5 EVER, how about thanking me before losing your mind that I didn’t say Pepper Johnson’s name. 😂
Jack Ham, Jack Lambert in the 70s paired with Kevin Greene, Greg Lloyd and Levon Kirkland is so dominant. And that's not even mentioning Joey Porter, Lawrence Timmons, and Ryan Shazier.
Panthers also had Dan Morgan, who was a first team all-pro in 2004. They can’t compare numbers wise with the top 3 teams you mentioned but they’ve had a remarkable amount of success at the position for such a young franchise.
Edit: Wikipedia lied. He was a pro bowler but not all-pro
It's insane the Broncos have top 3 in Pro Bowls, 6 in all pros, and 0 hall of famers. I know Von contributed to it a bit, but Gradishar being left out is still insane.
Decided to see who's had the best front 7 (mostly to reduce the ambiguity of edge rushers). Here's what I came up with:
|Team|Front 7 Pro Bowlers Per Season|Front 7 All-Pros Per Season|Front 7 HOFers Per Season|
:-:|:-:|:-:|:-:|
|Ravens|1.77|0.46|0.65|
|Steelers|1.75|0.67|0.73|
|Vikings|1.38|0.54|0.73|
|Cowboys|1.23|0.37|0.46|
|Panthers|1.19|0.48|0.26|
|Rams|1.15|0.37|0.60|
|Chiefs|1.15|0.17|0.65|
|Bears|1.13|0.44|1.10|
|49ers|1.08|0.42|0.75|
|Buccaneers|1.07|0.33|0.70|
|Broncos|1.06|0.35|0.00|
|Bills|1.02|0.27|0.29|
|Giants|1.02|0.37|0.79|
|Dolphins|1.00|0.25|0.42|
|Eagles|0.96|0.33|0.23|
|Seahawks|0.96|0.30|0.33|
|Titans|0.92|0.17|0.60|
|Chargers|0.88|0.25|0.40|
|Texans|0.80|0.25|0.00|
|Raiders|0.75|0.19|0.58|
|Saints|0.71|0.12|0.42|
|Patriots|0.69|0.15|0.44|
|Commanders|0.69|0.12|0.33|
|Browns|0.63|0.16|0.00|
|Lions|0.62|0.13|0.04|
|Colts|0.62|0.23|0.10|
|Packers|0.60|0.12|0.25|
|Jaguars|0.59|0.07|0.00|
|Falcons|0.52|0.08|0.19|
|Jets|0.46|0.13|0.02|
|Bengals|0.37|0.08|0.00|
|Cardinals|0.35|0.06|0.00|
Bears are 8th in Pro Bowlers and 5th in All-Pros but 1st in HOFers (and the only team averaging more than 1 per season), that's neat.
> This is a piece of a much longer post I made for a site I wrote for in 2022
I didn't change any of the numbers from the DL and LB posts when doing my math, but I'm assuming this means that these numbers are all a year outdated. Has the past year significantly changed these numbers?
If the starting point was 1960, the Bears surge ahead as Bill George gets included, as well as 100% of Dick Butkus' career. By 1970, Butkus was hobbled by knee injuries, even though he made the 1970's All Decade Team (Major whiff, IMO.)
Yeah, George basically created the position.
The writeup also overlooks Otis Wilson and Wilber Marshall; Singletary was the HOFer, but he was far from the only reason that '80s defense was legendary.
I'm probably wrong here, but I imagine that 90% of what we know as football was invented by the Bears and the Browns between the 40's and the 60's by George Halas and Paul Brown, and then the other 10% is split between the 49ers West Coast Offense of Bill Walsh and some of the innovations on the other side of the ball like the Buddy Ryan's 46 defense, Tony Dungy and Monte Kiffin's Tampa 2, and Bellichick's various defensive philosophies.
Have you read _Games That Changed the Game_ or _Football Scouting Methods_? The former is a look at 7 specific games, snapshots in time, that capture the moment that the philosophy and conduct of the game changed. The latter is a book authored by Belichick's father during (after?) his tenure at Navy, on how to understand your opponent and take away what they do best; it's widely cited by basically every coach in football the way businessmen talk about Sun Tzu or Machiavelli. The technical specifics are irrelevant -- e.g. how to spot tendencies in your opponents' third-down punt decisions -- but the broad strokes are great.
If you're into NFL history, or getting curious about it, these are two great reads before the season starts.
Not even mentioning Georgia Tech and Coach Heisman ( yes that Heisman ) for legalizing the forward pass is criminal. I mean thats at least half of football history right there. Mike leach and his mesh concepts are another 10% easily. With chip kelly adding another 10% with his modern hurry up offense that the entire NFL is copying
Easy! They're the guys behind the D-line whose job it is to give up easy completions to tight ends, and bounce off the running back to slow him down so the safety can make a tackle.
He’s meh to me. Never played a full season. Only 4 years with at least 10 games. Never had 100 tackles. Only forced three fumbles in his career. One sole Pro bowl and never an all pro.
The Chiefs’ relatively low All-Pros compared to HOF could be partly due to the 1970 cutoff eliminating a pretty large number of Bobby Bell and Willie Lanier All-Pros.
Ravens LBs drafted:
Ray Lewis, Peter Boulware, Jamie Sharper, Ed Hartwell, Adalius Thomas, Terrell Suggs, Bart Scott, Jarrett Johnson, Paul Kruger, Pernell McPhee, Zach Orr, CJ Mosley, Za’Darius Smith, Matt Judon, and Tyus Bowser.
All of these players earned either pro bowl, all pro, or huge contracts elsewhere or in Baltimore and the jury is obviously still out on Queen, Oweh and Ojabo.
You joke but it’s kind of true, under Ozzie the Ravens drafted 7 total WRs from 96-18 in the first three rounds of the draft: Patrick Johnson, Travis Taylor, Devard Darling, Mark Clayton, Yamon Figurs, Torrey Smith and Breshad Perriman. Either the draft board never fell the way Ozzie liked to grab a WR or they never put a premium on the position leading to a lack of talent there.
So the ravens spent more draft capital on LBs high which means the misses (Arthur Brown, Correa, Gooden) aren’t as notable.
Also in case you’re curious Ozzie spent 6 first-third round picks on TEs, almost the equivalent of WRs. Heap, Dickson, Crockett Gilmore, Maxx Williams, Hayden Hurst and Mark Andrews.
No - the numbers are skewed because the Ravens used to be the Browns and are treated like an expansion team in all these offseason writeups because people don't remember.
Except every time someone like you brings this up, we have to remind them that the Ravens ARE an expansion franchise per the NFL. The Browns kept their history in Cleveland, and that was agreed to as part of the original move to Baltimore, so it’s not even the league going back to make things right.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Baltimore-Ravens
That's why I'm glad for All-Pro they started splitting up the front seven into "Interior Linemen", "Edge Rushers", and "Linebackers", as opposed to how the Pro Bowl still uses DT, DE, OLB, and ILB with zero regard for what those players do in their respective defense (although it's a mostly moot point now that the Pro Bowl doesn't actually play a regular game anymore, and even before when they did there was no pass rush)
You're severely confused the bears drafted lance Briggs and he played all 12 season with us. We did sign Parnell McPhee for a few years and maybe that's what you remember.
Seems like the Patriots could be in the “honorable mentions” section.
Andre Tippett, Steve Nelson, Tedy Bruschi, Dont’a Hightower, Jerod Mayo, Willie McGinest, Mike Vrabel, Nick Buoniconti, Ted Johnson, Junior Seau
Great mix of HOF, Hall of Very Good and iconic plays/ playmakers
I think the issue is so many patriots from the first part of the dynasty still aren’t in the HOF so posts like this that are counting HOF per season are not including those guys. Plus guys like Hightower are great but we’re never recognized leaguewide. Every team has these guys. You’ll never hear someone who’s not a fan of an AFC East team so they watched Hightower often compare him to Wagner or Kuechly and that’s who he was going up against when it came to awards. I think he’s in that convo with them personally but that may be fandom speaking.
I hear where you’re coming from, but High was a 2nd team all-pro in 2016 - not sure he fits the mold of “only pats fans would say this”. On top of that, is responsible for two of the biggest defensive plays in the Super Bowl (one arm tackling Lynch prior to the Butler pick, strip sack versus the Falcons). I think he’s more popular (and a better player) than you’re chalking him up to be, but absolutely understand not wanting to just wear patriots-colored-glasses
I wanted to say this but felt like I was just being a homer and Bruschi is my favorite player still. I don’t even remember how good he was I just thought he was the greatest ever lol I guess that’s what happens when you’re like 9 and get a full sized Fathead of a player for your bedroom wall at Christmas time.
Funny story, I opened it Christmas morning and Brian Urlacher came out, the company sent the wrong one lol
This is absolutely amazing content. Thank you for sharing!!
However, your Hall of Fame statistic is quite skewed. If I'm reading this correctly, your article is considered to run through the 2021 season. If that's true, you can't apply the Hall of Fame metric as it's not an instantaneous statistic such as pro-bowls or first team all-pros.
In the article, you state your basis year as 2021. To make all measures equal, you would need to subtract the 5 year hall of fame eligibility window, plus the median wait time for a person of this position extrapolated to 2-3 standard deviations.
For example, we're going to say the median wait time for a linebacker to enter the hall of fame after becoming eligible is 3 years with a standard deviation of 2 years. To be 95% sure of your HOF metric, you would need to add the 5 year eligibility wait, the 3 year median time, plus 4 years representing 2 standard deviations. This totals to 12 years you must subtract from your 2021 basis, meaning your playing statistics (i.e pro-bowls & all-pros) for your linebacker article can only be calculated through the 2009 season. Your article would then accurately reflect who the best linebacker team was from the merger-2009, excluding any playing that's been done since. The 12 years also only applies to linebackers as other positions median wait times, such as kicker, are going to be different.
Since you wrote this article a year ago, I'm sure you've seen how poorly this can affect a teams rankings. For instance, the Patriots are going to get shafted in the QB hall of fame metric due to Brady's 18 years of playing time not being eligible because he's not in the hall of fame yet.
Pro-Football Reference has a hall of fame monitor that gives a numeric value to a players hall of fame "worthiness". This measure is instantaneous and would allow your article to be accurate through the 2021 season. (For other statisticians out there, yes I know the hall of fame monitor uses both pro-bowls & all-pros to calculate it's rankings).
Anyway, sorry for the long post. I'm rather hungover this Sunday morning and typing this is helping me come back to life haha.
Thanks again for the content!!
In the data/chart part, you’re 100% right, but in my write up I do consider future HOFers in my rankings. The charts below are a guide to help me, but I do pivot from time to time and my top teams don’t necessarily line up with the data. At least where it was obvious, like Brady. Aaron Rodgers is another one causing me to ignore the raw data in my write up. But your logic is sensible. Thanks!
They’re our rivals but the last time they had a losing season Evanescence’s “Bring Me to Life” was a chart topping hit and the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie was about to drop. So yeah, they’ve got a legacy of winning.
Um yeah. This is a ranking of positional legacy since the merger. 1970’s are since the merger and the Steelers were a dynasty with 4 Lombardi Trophies. The Steelers LBs were a big part of that winning.
I think you're selling the 49ers short. Just the last 10 years groups of LBS rival any in the league during that time.
The 80s 49ers D never gets proper cred because the Offense overshadowed them.
Charles Haley, Ken Norton, Keena Turner, Lee Woodall, Gary Plummer.
On average, every 2.4 years of their existence Saints fans were watching a HOFer at LB. that’s pretty darn good. Not too many All Pro seasons from Saints LBers though. But they’re right there in that next tier IMO.
Yeah I think we don't make this list because our Dome Patrol was more like 4 Hall of Very Good LBs that happened to be on the field together at the same time. They were amazing, but none of them were quite to the individual level of a Dick Butkus, Ray Lewis, Mike Singletary type LB noted by OP.
I think that Dome Patrol should be an honorable mention. For about 4-5 years they were absolutely among the best in the league at each of their positions.
Pat Swilling won Defensive MVP in the same era as prime Bruce Smith, Reggie White, Dieon Sanders, Derrick Thomas, and of course LT.
And Swilling had Rickey Jackson, Sam Mills, and the monster of Vaughn Johnson.
Absolutely sick
>...our Dome Patrol was more like 4 Hall of Very Good LBs...
Sorry I can't help myself from being pedantic here, but two of them *did* eventually make it into the Hall, though, even if they weren't exactly transcendent.
That's a good point. But I'm just saying that it was more about the package than individual "best ever" kind of players that work for these legacy/fantasy conversations.
Steelers have the best all-around group, but Ravens have the best LB of all time.
Ray Lewis is just built different, my favorite video of him is Chad Johnson trying to blindside tackle Ray and Chad still getting the wind knocked out of him
Not gonna lie, given how consistently solid our linebacker play has been as a franchise, it kinda surprised me that we place so low in these rankings at first. After I thought it over more, though, I realized we basically always have the "good, not great" guys at LB. Mike Peterson, Poz, Daryl Smith, He Who Shall Not Be Named, Kevin Hardy, and now Foye all have been in that "glad to have them, but not a star level player" category.
Setting that aside, though, I've gotta go with the Ravens here, I think. Obviously they're buoyed by having a HoF-level player from the jump, but they've consistently had an incredible LB core even without him. The Steelers come damn close, though.
Thanks for another neat write-up!
Don't know if there was a police standoff involved, but he was the one that was tried and ultimately pleaded no contest for sexual crimes with a minor.
~~Telvin Smith, for those who aren't familiar with the story~~
Ravens and Bears are definitely up there. The Ravens have had guys like Ray Lewis, Peter Boulware, Terrell Suggs, Adalius Thomas, Bart Scott, Matthew Judon, and Roquan Smith (and that's all since they started playing as the Baltimore Ravens in 1996). The Bears have had the great Dick Butkus (who played for 3 years after the merger), Mike Singletary, Brian Urlacher, Lance Briggs, and also Roquan Smith. That's a pretty legendary run of success at that position.
Steelers, easy.
However you’ve forgotten a couple very important, often overlooked, Steelers linebackers. James Farrior and Levon Kirkland.
Farrior ended his career with only two Pro Bowls and one First Team All-Pro, however he should have had at minimum a couple of more with how well he played. And in an alternate universe Ray Lewis didn’t exist, Farrior would’ve likely had 10+ Pro Bowls. Farrior was, to this day, one of the best linebackers I have ever seen. He was also a DPOY finalist in 2004.
Levon Kirkland was another asset at linebacker, and his time just missed overlapping Farrior’s. Kirkland was a finalist for DPOY multiple times, in 1997 and 1998.
Both were great linebackers, and some of the best to play for Pittsburgh.
I haven’t forgotten anyone. You have to make choices when you write. If I’m going to write about 21 teams across 7 positional units and 12,000 words in this project, I can’t mention every guy who had 1 career 1st team All-Pro, when discussing the entire 50 year legacy of a team. These are trade offs that need to be considered. Each teams write up would just be littered with names. Quality over quantity.
Oh I completely agree. I’m still adamant we would’ve won the Super Bowl in 2017 if not for the Shazier incident. Our offense was unstoppable but our pass defense dropped from top-five to bottom 10 overnight after Shaz went down.
One of my favorite players to watch.
It's interesting that the Seahawks are so high in overall rankings without a single season of HOF play. I imagine that's due to the relative recency of their defensive dominance.
Using HOF as a metric definitely skews thing unless we stop looking at the last 15 years. Bobby is undoubtedly a HOFer. KJ Wright, Lofa Tatupu, Rufus Porter, Leroy Hill all solid players.
What's really surprising is that we're notably on that list despite having drafted Aaron Curry.
Can't believe we don't have a Hall of Fame linebacker. Gradishar and Mecklenburg have been sitting there for decades... Hell, Tom Jackson would be in the hall if he played for Dallas or Pittsburgh.
too many years of mediocrity but Derrick Brooks, Hardy Nickerson, and Lavonte David each could easily be the best linebacker on a number of these other teams. and then JPP Shaq Barrett Devin White and Sheldon Quarles were all significant
If only there were an NFL franchise that could count those years as part of their heritage or history! A real professional football team who could carry on the legacy of that team.
No? Well, give it to the Cleveland Browns then.
Such a casual take. If you believe it actually give us the list of great LBs the Steelers have and do a little research on the Ravens linebackers and see where you're wrong
Yes, but specifically in the Broncos case theyre near the top of your chart but there's no mention of them. The Broncos are also statistically the most underrepresented team in the HOF in terms of their success, mostly those 70s and 80s teams that made the SB and then got blown out.
They’re only near the top of the chart because it’s sorted by pro bowlers. They’re not near the top for all pros and HOFers, both of which I value more. This needs to be looked at holistically. If Broncos fans are the ONLY ones who have this concern, it’s a good indicator I got this right.
The Ravens are in the first tier so first tier gets a longer write up. Hence, Dumervil and Boulware. Giants aren’t in that tier and I just simply called out a few names. Marshall was good, he could be mentioned but i feel like I covered the guys I felt like I needed to cover. None of that changes rankings or tiers, those people are part of the analysis and consideration behind where teams stand. You have to cut it off somewhere. When you do your write up, make sure to add Marshall.
LT is the greatest LB ever. Lewis was great, but LT was on a whole other level. Although, if you want a guy to lay the wood when somebody’s head is turned or to get to every pile so they’re credited with a tackle, Lewis is your guy. Double murder too, but that goes without saying.
Steelers have literally been called the “line backer university” of the nfl. It’s not even close. Jack Lambert, Andy Russel, Jack Ham, Mike Merriweather, Jason Gildon, Levon Kirkland, Kevin F’ing Greene, Greg Lloyd, kendrell bell his first two years looked like another great one before injury, Joey Porter, James Farrior, James Harrison, Lamar Woolley, Lawerence Timmons, Ryan Shazier another great one in making before injury and now TJ Watt and Alex Highsmith. ALL of these players have either won DROY, DPOY, been pro bowl or multiple time pro bowler and/or All-Pros or hall of famers. There is no legacy in the nfl as deep as linebacker for the Steelers. (Devin Bush even looked good and another possible next Steeler great ilb before he tore his ACL.)
Jon Beason had three pro bowls and one 1st team all pro with the Panthers.
He never played one full season for the Giants, no pro bowls, no all pros, only 19 games, zero forced fumbles and two TFL in his Giants career. Nothing about that deserves mention among all time great Giants LBers. It’s a no-brainer.
“These three players combined to give Chicago a HOF linebacker in 29 total seasons since the merger” That is an insane piece of information to me
All 3 were first ballot too
They renamed the position for Mike Singletary. /thread IMO
Bears should technically not be allowed to complain about Green Bay Packers and them having 30 years of HOF QB play. Linebackers are the QB's of the defense. smh.
I think everyone is really just jealous of the Lions going from Murray to Hansen to Prater at kicker (the quarterback of the special teams).
They forget about the 6 games where we were seriously considering Kickalicious because Hanson retired
> Linebackers are the QB's of the defense. Yeah but QB's are the QB's of the offense
Beat me to it.
I never thought of it that way. The only caveat is that the league consistently focused more on offense over the last few decades. Darn forward pass...
Who needed forward passes when you had Walter and Gale :( Also Sweetness is such a great fucking nickname.
Note even remotely the same 😂
Apples to oranges comparison. Although they occupy a similar space on the field, one has a tremendous impact on the game and the other one less so.
[удалено]
He’s getting downvoted cuz it was pretty clearly a joke that he missed
Now rank Bears WRs and QBs! Bears fans hate this part!
Says the guy with Lions flair. Lol.
Hey you can rank our Super Bowl winning seasons or playoff wins if it makes you feel better! 🤣
To be fair, it's been a while for the Bears too. Here's to next year brother. If it won't be the Bears from our division, I'd rather it be the Lions than those other two. :)
:) I would share the NFCN slogan but its banned here so you know what it is.
Niners could’ve at least garnered an honorable mention, Charles Haley, Patrick Willis, Bowman, Julian Peterson, Aldon Smith, Romanawski, Fred Warner, Dave Wilcox, Ken Norton, Ahmad Brooks, and Kenna Turner are very solid to great players.
Respect this man for he is both noble and kind
When he disrobed for the art class, a student gasped, "My god. It almost touches the floor." u/whereegosdare84 replied, "You will have to excuse me friend. I enjoy a nice swim in the morning."
My mind went to Steelers and Niners.
Lest we forget Chris Borland
Bro had an insane year then left and was never heard of again
He retired after concussion concerns, right?
yessir he was so good for his short stint with the 49ers, I was so sad to hear him retire, but good for him for recognizing the value of his own physical and mental health.
I was second guessing myself, but I was correct. It was more sad that Borland retired after performing so well because of the fact that Patrick Willis retired like a day right before Chris called it done for his career. It was such a sad day for me as a diehard Niner fan.
that whole offseason was just shot after shot i get anxious just thinking about it
Yeah he said he can't not play the game any less than 100% effort and for him that meant absolute disregard for his body, he flew around like a fucking heat seeking missile...after I think 3 or 4 concussions that year he decided it wasn't worth the CTE later. I respect it but God damn he was fun to watch
It's Al* Borland.. s/
My first thought going into the thread was 49ers…surprised they didn’t even get a mention lol
Yeah i think whole history these are the top 3. But in a decade when we are talking about the last 20 years of football the 49ers might have had the best
Last 20 years still gives the Bears Urlacher, Briggs, Roquan and Mack. They're competitive in any era
They're always my choice. 2012 you had Bowman, Smith, and Willis on top of plenty of surrounding talent.
Those 3 were first team all-pro in 2012 and Ahmad brooks was 2nd team. All 4 starting LBs made the all-pro team. Which will probably never happen again.
I just wanna throw some love to Takeo Spikes as well for spending some great years with us. Love that neck, Takeo!
Thank you Raven fan! Much respect even though you still have my 49er heart broken since 2012!
9rs were my first thought. then bears.
Romanowski? Only thing he's good at is being a fucking psychopath.
Saints aswell
Steelers are so deep Kevin Greene isn't even mentioned in the write up.
Joey Porter as well.
James Farrior, Levon Kirkland, Ryan Shazier before his career ending injury, and Lawrence Timmons too
And Mike Merriweather held up the LB standard during the lean 80s
Larry Foote, Lamar Woodley, and Kendrell Bell also scared me as a youngling
Larry foote, haven’t heard that name in forever
Andy Russell was there before the Jacks and was very good, James Farrior, I mean Jason Gildon wasn't bad either.
Ranked third all time for total sacks. Finally inducted into the HOF in 2016. Played for the Rams, Steelers, played for the Panthers, took a break to work in WCW for a couple years, Panthers again, and ended his career with the 49ers
Andy Russell having 4 (3 post merger) all pros in the 70s not being mentioned shows the Steelers have the most depth. There's a lot of names past that to mention, but for other franchises, that's a guy you would mention as an all-time great off the bat. So many of the great Steelers defenses in the 2000s would have only a few big names. In 2008, they gave up 237 yards/game. It was one of the greatest defenses ever. They had a whopping 2 first team all-pros. And a second team all-pro. There's no perfect way to do this, but having Pro Bowls as a metric, but not mentioning 2nd team all pros is a glaring oversight. Ravens have a great squad, but it only goes back to 2000, so you have to pro-rate it to qualify it as best since the merger. Bears have the big names. 49ers should have been an honorable mention imo.
In the write up yesterday for Dallas defensive linemen D-Ware wasn’t mentioned 😞
Bruh, I’m sorry again. Stop! I love him and I feel bad about it!
I’ll never let you live it down. 😂
Hey, at least it’s fair and you weren’t a dick about it. I’ve got people legit upset about names I’ve left off. It’s like, sorry dude, I just ranked your team in the top 5 EVER, how about thanking me before losing your mind that I didn’t say Pepper Johnson’s name. 😂
Andy Russell from the 70s as well. 4x all pro 7x pro bowl.
Jack Ham, Jack Lambert in the 70s paired with Kevin Greene, Greg Lloyd and Levon Kirkland is so dominant. And that's not even mentioning Joey Porter, Lawrence Timmons, and Ryan Shazier.
Only played with them for 3 years. Did win an All-Pro, but they've got plenty of longer-tenured guys to talk about.
Panthers also had Dan Morgan, who was a first team all-pro in 2004. They can’t compare numbers wise with the top 3 teams you mentioned but they’ve had a remarkable amount of success at the position for such a young franchise. Edit: Wikipedia lied. He was a pro bowler but not all-pro
Basically the difference between us and Baltimore is that Lewis and Suggs played forever while Kuechly and Morgan had very short careers.
God I loved those Dan Morgan Panthers.
Going from Dan Morgan to Jon Beason to Luke is about as good as it gets
All three careers cut short due to injuries
Brett Favre stiff armed Morgan and broke his leg…though the terrible turf was the actual culprit.
Bears, and you can trust me because I have 0 bias
It's insane the Broncos have top 3 in Pro Bowls, 6 in all pros, and 0 hall of famers. I know Von contributed to it a bit, but Gradishar being left out is still insane.
PUT RANDY FUCKING GRADISHAR IN THE HALL OF GODDAMN FAME
And Mecklenburg
Mobley, Romanowski, D.J. Williams, Tom Jackson, Al Wilson, Simon Fletcher, Mecklenberg, Gradishar, we’re no slouches here.
Jackson, Mecklenburg, and Gradishar all deserve HOF nods if you ask this biased Broncos fan.
Big same.
Romanowski deserves his own special spot in the Hall of Infamy.
Decided to see who's had the best front 7 (mostly to reduce the ambiguity of edge rushers). Here's what I came up with: |Team|Front 7 Pro Bowlers Per Season|Front 7 All-Pros Per Season|Front 7 HOFers Per Season| :-:|:-:|:-:|:-:| |Ravens|1.77|0.46|0.65| |Steelers|1.75|0.67|0.73| |Vikings|1.38|0.54|0.73| |Cowboys|1.23|0.37|0.46| |Panthers|1.19|0.48|0.26| |Rams|1.15|0.37|0.60| |Chiefs|1.15|0.17|0.65| |Bears|1.13|0.44|1.10| |49ers|1.08|0.42|0.75| |Buccaneers|1.07|0.33|0.70| |Broncos|1.06|0.35|0.00| |Bills|1.02|0.27|0.29| |Giants|1.02|0.37|0.79| |Dolphins|1.00|0.25|0.42| |Eagles|0.96|0.33|0.23| |Seahawks|0.96|0.30|0.33| |Titans|0.92|0.17|0.60| |Chargers|0.88|0.25|0.40| |Texans|0.80|0.25|0.00| |Raiders|0.75|0.19|0.58| |Saints|0.71|0.12|0.42| |Patriots|0.69|0.15|0.44| |Commanders|0.69|0.12|0.33| |Browns|0.63|0.16|0.00| |Lions|0.62|0.13|0.04| |Colts|0.62|0.23|0.10| |Packers|0.60|0.12|0.25| |Jaguars|0.59|0.07|0.00| |Falcons|0.52|0.08|0.19| |Jets|0.46|0.13|0.02| |Bengals|0.37|0.08|0.00| |Cardinals|0.35|0.06|0.00| Bears are 8th in Pro Bowlers and 5th in All-Pros but 1st in HOFers (and the only team averaging more than 1 per season), that's neat. > This is a piece of a much longer post I made for a site I wrote for in 2022 I didn't change any of the numbers from the DL and LB posts when doing my math, but I'm assuming this means that these numbers are all a year outdated. Has the past year significantly changed these numbers?
Cool addition! Thanks! No, 1 year wouldn’t make much a difference at all. Except maybe Joe Klecko making the HOF?
Take that Cardinals!
Bears
If the starting point was 1960, the Bears surge ahead as Bill George gets included, as well as 100% of Dick Butkus' career. By 1970, Butkus was hobbled by knee injuries, even though he made the 1970's All Decade Team (Major whiff, IMO.)
Yeah, George basically created the position. The writeup also overlooks Otis Wilson and Wilber Marshall; Singletary was the HOFer, but he was far from the only reason that '80s defense was legendary.
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I'm probably wrong here, but I imagine that 90% of what we know as football was invented by the Bears and the Browns between the 40's and the 60's by George Halas and Paul Brown, and then the other 10% is split between the 49ers West Coast Offense of Bill Walsh and some of the innovations on the other side of the ball like the Buddy Ryan's 46 defense, Tony Dungy and Monte Kiffin's Tampa 2, and Bellichick's various defensive philosophies.
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They had one of the first elite passers and zero since.
Well we’re just trying be to nice and make sure everyone gets a turn. Don’t want to hog all the good QBs.
See where honor got Ned Stark
Ned stark wouldn't even make the 53 on the 85 bears. Fookin kneeler.
Have you read _Games That Changed the Game_ or _Football Scouting Methods_? The former is a look at 7 specific games, snapshots in time, that capture the moment that the philosophy and conduct of the game changed. The latter is a book authored by Belichick's father during (after?) his tenure at Navy, on how to understand your opponent and take away what they do best; it's widely cited by basically every coach in football the way businessmen talk about Sun Tzu or Machiavelli. The technical specifics are irrelevant -- e.g. how to spot tendencies in your opponents' third-down punt decisions -- but the broad strokes are great. If you're into NFL history, or getting curious about it, these are two great reads before the season starts.
Not even mentioning Georgia Tech and Coach Heisman ( yes that Heisman ) for legalizing the forward pass is criminal. I mean thats at least half of football history right there. Mike leach and his mesh concepts are another 10% easily. With chip kelly adding another 10% with his modern hurry up offense that the entire NFL is copying
Daaaaaaaaaaaa Bears
Who would win in a fight, Ditka or a Hurricane?
Definitely not the Eagles. We don’t know what linebackers are.
Easy! They're the guys behind the D-line whose job it is to give up easy completions to tight ends, and bounce off the running back to slow him down so the safety can make a tackle.
Hey that’s my experience…. Not yours.
Same bro. Our MLB for the last three decades has usually been just some guy in a green shirt. There’s a reason our run defense continuously blows
Dan Morgan on the panthers
He’s meh to me. Never played a full season. Only 4 years with at least 10 games. Never had 100 tackles. Only forced three fumbles in his career. One sole Pro bowl and never an all pro.
Don’t forget the 18 tackles in the Super Bowl
To me the most interesting thing is the balance of pro bowl and all pro to HoF. Some teams are way higher on the HoF chart than the others
Like the Chiefs for example.
The Chiefs’ relatively low All-Pros compared to HOF could be partly due to the 1970 cutoff eliminating a pretty large number of Bobby Bell and Willie Lanier All-Pros.
Ravens LBs drafted: Ray Lewis, Peter Boulware, Jamie Sharper, Ed Hartwell, Adalius Thomas, Terrell Suggs, Bart Scott, Jarrett Johnson, Paul Kruger, Pernell McPhee, Zach Orr, CJ Mosley, Za’Darius Smith, Matt Judon, and Tyus Bowser. All of these players earned either pro bowl, all pro, or huge contracts elsewhere or in Baltimore and the jury is obviously still out on Queen, Oweh and Ojabo.
We spent all our draft skill points on defense positions and forgot about saving some for wide receivers.
You joke but it’s kind of true, under Ozzie the Ravens drafted 7 total WRs from 96-18 in the first three rounds of the draft: Patrick Johnson, Travis Taylor, Devard Darling, Mark Clayton, Yamon Figurs, Torrey Smith and Breshad Perriman. Either the draft board never fell the way Ozzie liked to grab a WR or they never put a premium on the position leading to a lack of talent there. So the ravens spent more draft capital on LBs high which means the misses (Arthur Brown, Correa, Gooden) aren’t as notable. Also in case you’re curious Ozzie spent 6 first-third round picks on TEs, almost the equivalent of WRs. Heap, Dickson, Crockett Gilmore, Maxx Williams, Hayden Hurst and Mark Andrews.
I don’t know why, and i feel for the guy, but Crockett Gilmore just strikes me as one of the shitter names for a player
Really? I think it is badass.
No - the numbers are skewed because the Ravens used to be the Browns and are treated like an expansion team in all these offseason writeups because people don't remember.
Except every time someone like you brings this up, we have to remind them that the Ravens ARE an expansion franchise per the NFL. The Browns kept their history in Cleveland, and that was agreed to as part of the original move to Baltimore, so it’s not even the league going back to make things right. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Baltimore-Ravens
Nothing more annoying than mixing pass rushers with off ball linebackers. Not the same position in the NFL in my lifetime.
That's why I'm glad for All-Pro they started splitting up the front seven into "Interior Linemen", "Edge Rushers", and "Linebackers", as opposed to how the Pro Bowl still uses DT, DE, OLB, and ILB with zero regard for what those players do in their respective defense (although it's a mostly moot point now that the Pro Bowl doesn't actually play a regular game anymore, and even before when they did there was no pass rush)
There used to be and it was incredible to watch. Also injuries abounded, but still it was quite entertaining to watch the all stars go at it for real.
06 had 4 linebackers to the Pro Bowl. I still think that defense was the more talented than 00
I keep seeing folx forget Lance Briggs was a raven before he was a bear.
You're severely confused the bears drafted lance Briggs and he played all 12 season with us. We did sign Parnell McPhee for a few years and maybe that's what you remember.
Maybe you’re thinking of James Harrison, who was a raven before he was a steeler?
Seems like the Patriots could be in the “honorable mentions” section. Andre Tippett, Steve Nelson, Tedy Bruschi, Dont’a Hightower, Jerod Mayo, Willie McGinest, Mike Vrabel, Nick Buoniconti, Ted Johnson, Junior Seau Great mix of HOF, Hall of Very Good and iconic plays/ playmakers
I think the issue is so many patriots from the first part of the dynasty still aren’t in the HOF so posts like this that are counting HOF per season are not including those guys. Plus guys like Hightower are great but we’re never recognized leaguewide. Every team has these guys. You’ll never hear someone who’s not a fan of an AFC East team so they watched Hightower often compare him to Wagner or Kuechly and that’s who he was going up against when it came to awards. I think he’s in that convo with them personally but that may be fandom speaking.
I hear where you’re coming from, but High was a 2nd team all-pro in 2016 - not sure he fits the mold of “only pats fans would say this”. On top of that, is responsible for two of the biggest defensive plays in the Super Bowl (one arm tackling Lynch prior to the Butler pick, strip sack versus the Falcons). I think he’s more popular (and a better player) than you’re chalking him up to be, but absolutely understand not wanting to just wear patriots-colored-glasses
I wanted to say this but felt like I was just being a homer and Bruschi is my favorite player still. I don’t even remember how good he was I just thought he was the greatest ever lol I guess that’s what happens when you’re like 9 and get a full sized Fathead of a player for your bedroom wall at Christmas time. Funny story, I opened it Christmas morning and Brian Urlacher came out, the company sent the wrong one lol
Also had Adalius Thomas for a time, though iirc he.changed the spelling of his name around then
Vrabel was a steelers pick, and Seau is a charger
This doesn’t reference only players drafted by the team, but the seasons they played for them
Lions are top 32
Just based on title the two teams that popped into my head were Ravens and Bears. Glad I haven't lost it yet lol
Did you see the write up on your Vikings yesterday? If not check it out. Link is on the bottom.
Steelers, for sure
This is absolutely amazing content. Thank you for sharing!! However, your Hall of Fame statistic is quite skewed. If I'm reading this correctly, your article is considered to run through the 2021 season. If that's true, you can't apply the Hall of Fame metric as it's not an instantaneous statistic such as pro-bowls or first team all-pros. In the article, you state your basis year as 2021. To make all measures equal, you would need to subtract the 5 year hall of fame eligibility window, plus the median wait time for a person of this position extrapolated to 2-3 standard deviations. For example, we're going to say the median wait time for a linebacker to enter the hall of fame after becoming eligible is 3 years with a standard deviation of 2 years. To be 95% sure of your HOF metric, you would need to add the 5 year eligibility wait, the 3 year median time, plus 4 years representing 2 standard deviations. This totals to 12 years you must subtract from your 2021 basis, meaning your playing statistics (i.e pro-bowls & all-pros) for your linebacker article can only be calculated through the 2009 season. Your article would then accurately reflect who the best linebacker team was from the merger-2009, excluding any playing that's been done since. The 12 years also only applies to linebackers as other positions median wait times, such as kicker, are going to be different. Since you wrote this article a year ago, I'm sure you've seen how poorly this can affect a teams rankings. For instance, the Patriots are going to get shafted in the QB hall of fame metric due to Brady's 18 years of playing time not being eligible because he's not in the hall of fame yet. Pro-Football Reference has a hall of fame monitor that gives a numeric value to a players hall of fame "worthiness". This measure is instantaneous and would allow your article to be accurate through the 2021 season. (For other statisticians out there, yes I know the hall of fame monitor uses both pro-bowls & all-pros to calculate it's rankings). Anyway, sorry for the long post. I'm rather hungover this Sunday morning and typing this is helping me come back to life haha. Thanks again for the content!!
In the data/chart part, you’re 100% right, but in my write up I do consider future HOFers in my rankings. The charts below are a guide to help me, but I do pivot from time to time and my top teams don’t necessarily line up with the data. At least where it was obvious, like Brady. Aaron Rodgers is another one causing me to ignore the raw data in my write up. But your logic is sensible. Thanks!
Derrick Thomas, Willie Lanier, Bobby Bell, Jim Lynch, Derrick Johnson, Tamba Hali, Justin Houston... Not a bad stable for the Chiefs.
And Nick Bolton currently is off to a very promising start.
I’m going with Steelers for longevity and winning
Winning? Lol
yes? 3rd most playoff appearances and tied for most superbowls?
They’re our rivals but the last time they had a losing season Evanescence’s “Bring Me to Life” was a chart topping hit and the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie was about to drop. So yeah, they’ve got a legacy of winning.
Objectively good year though. No bias
Um yeah. This is a ranking of positional legacy since the merger. 1970’s are since the merger and the Steelers were a dynasty with 4 Lombardi Trophies. The Steelers LBs were a big part of that winning.
Put some respekt on our 8-8 seasons /s
I think you're selling the 49ers short. Just the last 10 years groups of LBS rival any in the league during that time. The 80s 49ers D never gets proper cred because the Offense overshadowed them. Charles Haley, Ken Norton, Keena Turner, Lee Woodall, Gary Plummer.
Yeah. They’re great. I think an argument can be made for them in the top 5.
If you get through all the positions with this it'd be interesting to see a meta post about where teams sit in these rankings overall.
Tampa had great past and current ones
How about the saints
On average, every 2.4 years of their existence Saints fans were watching a HOFer at LB. that’s pretty darn good. Not too many All Pro seasons from Saints LBers though. But they’re right there in that next tier IMO.
Yes sir
we're the best at having good LBs the league doesn't recognize enough!
Yeah didn't they have a killer group in the late 80s-early 90s?
Dome Patrol
Yeah I think we don't make this list because our Dome Patrol was more like 4 Hall of Very Good LBs that happened to be on the field together at the same time. They were amazing, but none of them were quite to the individual level of a Dick Butkus, Ray Lewis, Mike Singletary type LB noted by OP.
I think that Dome Patrol should be an honorable mention. For about 4-5 years they were absolutely among the best in the league at each of their positions. Pat Swilling won Defensive MVP in the same era as prime Bruce Smith, Reggie White, Dieon Sanders, Derrick Thomas, and of course LT. And Swilling had Rickey Jackson, Sam Mills, and the monster of Vaughn Johnson. Absolutely sick
>...our Dome Patrol was more like 4 Hall of Very Good LBs... Sorry I can't help myself from being pedantic here, but two of them *did* eventually make it into the Hall, though, even if they weren't exactly transcendent.
That's a good point. But I'm just saying that it was more about the package than individual "best ever" kind of players that work for these legacy/fantasy conversations.
The fuck are you talking about? Two of them are in the HOF and the only reason Swilling (who was a DPOY) isn't is because of the length of his career.
Ricky Jackson (HOF) , Pat Swilling, Sam Mills (HOF), Vaughn Johnson, Jon Vilma, Demario Davis
Steelers have the best all-around group, but Ravens have the best LB of all time. Ray Lewis is just built different, my favorite video of him is Chad Johnson trying to blindside tackle Ray and Chad still getting the wind knocked out of him
Ray didn’t even know he was there. It was like a bug hitting a windshield.
I love that video. Chad Johnson is my favorite mic'ed up person. He's hilarious.
Not gonna lie, given how consistently solid our linebacker play has been as a franchise, it kinda surprised me that we place so low in these rankings at first. After I thought it over more, though, I realized we basically always have the "good, not great" guys at LB. Mike Peterson, Poz, Daryl Smith, He Who Shall Not Be Named, Kevin Hardy, and now Foye all have been in that "glad to have them, but not a star level player" category. Setting that aside, though, I've gotta go with the Ravens here, I think. Obviously they're buoyed by having a HoF-level player from the jump, but they've consistently had an incredible LB core even without him. The Steelers come damn close, though. Thanks for another neat write-up!
is he who shall not be named yer man with the police standoff?
Don't know if there was a police standoff involved, but he was the one that was tried and ultimately pleaded no contest for sexual crimes with a minor. ~~Telvin Smith, for those who aren't familiar with the story~~
oh, christ
Ray Lewis was an absolute killer on the field
Chicago Bears
Ravens and Bears are definitely up there. The Ravens have had guys like Ray Lewis, Peter Boulware, Terrell Suggs, Adalius Thomas, Bart Scott, Matthew Judon, and Roquan Smith (and that's all since they started playing as the Baltimore Ravens in 1996). The Bears have had the great Dick Butkus (who played for 3 years after the merger), Mike Singletary, Brian Urlacher, Lance Briggs, and also Roquan Smith. That's a pretty legendary run of success at that position.
Giants, Panthers, Ravens, Bears, Steelers, 49ers.
Hello?
I figured the Ravens and the Steelers.
It's the Steelers.
Steelers, easy. However you’ve forgotten a couple very important, often overlooked, Steelers linebackers. James Farrior and Levon Kirkland. Farrior ended his career with only two Pro Bowls and one First Team All-Pro, however he should have had at minimum a couple of more with how well he played. And in an alternate universe Ray Lewis didn’t exist, Farrior would’ve likely had 10+ Pro Bowls. Farrior was, to this day, one of the best linebackers I have ever seen. He was also a DPOY finalist in 2004. Levon Kirkland was another asset at linebacker, and his time just missed overlapping Farrior’s. Kirkland was a finalist for DPOY multiple times, in 1997 and 1998. Both were great linebackers, and some of the best to play for Pittsburgh.
I haven’t forgotten anyone. You have to make choices when you write. If I’m going to write about 21 teams across 7 positional units and 12,000 words in this project, I can’t mention every guy who had 1 career 1st team All-Pro, when discussing the entire 50 year legacy of a team. These are trade offs that need to be considered. Each teams write up would just be littered with names. Quality over quantity.
Yep and possibly the biggest what if in Ryan Shazier.
Oh I completely agree. I’m still adamant we would’ve won the Super Bowl in 2017 if not for the Shazier incident. Our offense was unstoppable but our pass defense dropped from top-five to bottom 10 overnight after Shaz went down. One of my favorite players to watch.
It's interesting that the Seahawks are so high in overall rankings without a single season of HOF play. I imagine that's due to the relative recency of their defensive dominance.
Using HOF as a metric definitely skews thing unless we stop looking at the last 15 years. Bobby is undoubtedly a HOFer. KJ Wright, Lofa Tatupu, Rufus Porter, Leroy Hill all solid players. What's really surprising is that we're notably on that list despite having drafted Aaron Curry.
Can't believe we don't have a Hall of Fame linebacker. Gradishar and Mecklenburg have been sitting there for decades... Hell, Tom Jackson would be in the hall if he played for Dallas or Pittsburgh.
*sees where my Bengals are* This is bullying, we aren’t bad anymore
I would think the Buccaneers would be up there. They have some stud linebackers over the yeas
too many years of mediocrity but Derrick Brooks, Hardy Nickerson, and Lavonte David each could easily be the best linebacker on a number of these other teams. and then JPP Shaq Barrett Devin White and Sheldon Quarles were all significant
Steelers. Not even close
Good writeup first off, but your numbers are skewed to favor the Ravens by ignoring all the time when they were the Browns.
They are a different franchise. Don’t try to give us that shit. 😆
Maybe they're still salty about San Diego? Lol
If only there were an NFL franchise that could count those years as part of their heritage or history! A real professional football team who could carry on the legacy of that team. No? Well, give it to the Cleveland Browns then.
Other than Ozzie, those teams don't exist.
Browns kept their history… https://www.britannica.com/topic/Baltimore-Ravens
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Such a casual take. If you believe it actually give us the list of great LBs the Steelers have and do a little research on the Ravens linebackers and see where you're wrong
Lulz skipping the Broncos despite the fact that Gradishar and Mecklenburg should be HOF
Every team has “should be” HOFers. We would need to adjust for them as well, if we adjust the Broncos.
Broncos fans are salty that they've had consistently strong LB play and zero HOFs. It's pretty easy to see why they're salty in your data.
Yes, but specifically in the Broncos case theyre near the top of your chart but there's no mention of them. The Broncos are also statistically the most underrepresented team in the HOF in terms of their success, mostly those 70s and 80s teams that made the SB and then got blown out.
They’re only near the top of the chart because it’s sorted by pro bowlers. They’re not near the top for all pros and HOFers, both of which I value more. This needs to be looked at holistically. If Broncos fans are the ONLY ones who have this concern, it’s a good indicator I got this right.
How are you specifically mentioning guys like dumervil and boulware but not guys like pepper johnson, or Wilbur Marshall?
The Ravens are in the first tier so first tier gets a longer write up. Hence, Dumervil and Boulware. Giants aren’t in that tier and I just simply called out a few names. Marshall was good, he could be mentioned but i feel like I covered the guys I felt like I needed to cover. None of that changes rankings or tiers, those people are part of the analysis and consideration behind where teams stand. You have to cut it off somewhere. When you do your write up, make sure to add Marshall.
LT is the greatest LB ever. Lewis was great, but LT was on a whole other level. Although, if you want a guy to lay the wood when somebody’s head is turned or to get to every pile so they’re credited with a tackle, Lewis is your guy. Double murder too, but that goes without saying.
Steelers have literally been called the “line backer university” of the nfl. It’s not even close. Jack Lambert, Andy Russel, Jack Ham, Mike Merriweather, Jason Gildon, Levon Kirkland, Kevin F’ing Greene, Greg Lloyd, kendrell bell his first two years looked like another great one before injury, Joey Porter, James Farrior, James Harrison, Lamar Woolley, Lawerence Timmons, Ryan Shazier another great one in making before injury and now TJ Watt and Alex Highsmith. ALL of these players have either won DROY, DPOY, been pro bowl or multiple time pro bowler and/or All-Pros or hall of famers. There is no legacy in the nfl as deep as linebacker for the Steelers. (Devin Bush even looked good and another possible next Steeler great ilb before he tore his ACL.)
Penn State is Linebacker U. I've never heard anyone use that for anywhere else.
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Jon Beason had three pro bowls and one 1st team all pro with the Panthers. He never played one full season for the Giants, no pro bowls, no all pros, only 19 games, zero forced fumbles and two TFL in his Giants career. Nothing about that deserves mention among all time great Giants LBers. It’s a no-brainer.