I'm just having a 'spring clean' of my player weightings, esp now I have a new team in the competitive CUST10.
LB's are one area which I'm not convinced I've setup right for, esp the different ones.
Looking through the Stats section on the League Home, under the tab of defense shows:

Most Tackles made by the Secondary (SS, CB etc?)
Most Sacks made by DE/DT's

In real life, I thought it was blitzing LBs that made the sacks mainly??

Anyway, tying these two facts in - what should I be looking for in an LB?

jh

Well, in the NFL, and college, and high school, and junior high, and Pop Warner, and playing in the backyard with your Aunt Sally, linebackers are the main tacklers. Their role is to fill the gap on run defense, drop into short zones or play man in pass defense, or blitz the passer. All of these give them a lot of opportunities to rack up tackles.

In MFN, they don't work that way at all.

For this sim, your WLB is the only one that is going to rack up decent numbers and those numbers will be far behind your CB1 and SS. Make sure your best, fastest LB is at the WLB position. Then you have two choices: Blitz every down or drop into pass protection.

If you choose the first option, you can employ the strategy that works so well for so many. Find the three blitz packages that work and abuse the **** out of them. There is usually one blitz in the Normal defensive backfield, one blitz in the Nickle, and one blitz in the Dime that will just dominate an offense. Install those three plays and Goal line Attack #1 or #2 (since those are the only two GL plays that cover 4 receivers), and you're good to go. Just run neutral in every down or distance so you're equally good against the run.

If you choose the second, pray. If you have fast LBs with high punish and decent tackle, they'll help you some. But generally your LBs are a liability in pass defense when they are not blitzing.

In general, the absolute best season you can expect out of an LB is 80-90 tackles, and I've only gotten that by installing a lot of rules and crafting a defensive game plan for each opponent. This is really too aggravating for most players, so I would suggest just sticking with option one above.

Great thanks - much appreciated. Shame. Assume many of you have already asked the question of why some of the most important players in RL aren't so important on here.
I'll try to fully understand your 4th paragraph and have a go at that.

In MFN-7 I have a trio of beast LBs, and a killer DE that was also a LB.

My Middle LB was already on the team when I took it over, and the DE, SLB and WLB were the Top 3 LB's in the Draft from 2 Seasons ago.

The Vet MLB is Francis Humphreys.
77 SPD 73 ACL 79 STR 89 TKL
96/100 Pass Rush 96 Run Defense 96/100 Strip Ball
100 Zone 100 Man 100 Punish Receiver

He recorded 65 TKL, 5 Sacks, 2 INT, 36 Thrown At and 16 Catch Allowed with 5 Knock Downs. 44.44% Catch Allowed Rate.

SLB Joshua Velasquez
100 SPD 100 ACC 100 STR 67/70 TKL
90/92 Pass Rush 73/80 Run Defense 30 Strip Ball
77/83 Man 78/79 Zone 97 Punish Receiver

As a Rookie Joshua had 68 Tackles, 26 Sacks, 1 INT, 20 Thrown At with 6 Catch Allowed and 3 Knock Down. 30.00% Catch Allowed Rate.

WLB Samuel Shepard
100 SPD 100 ACC 100 STR 54/71 TKL
70/84 Pass Rush 65/80 Run 19 Strip
48/75 Man 61/74 Zone 81/88 Punish

As a Rookie Shepard had 66 Tackles, 5 Sacks, 0 INT, 41 Thrown At to 19 Catch Allowed with 2 Knock Downs. 46.34% Catch Allowed Rate.

LDE Phillip Bolden
100 SPD 100 ACC 100 STR 48/76 TKL
83/89 Pass Rush 80/91 Run Def 61/72 Strip
57/86 Man 63/83 Zone 79/95 Punish.

As a Rookie Phillip had 41 Tackles, 33 Sacks, 0 INT, with 7 Thrown At to 2 Catch Allowed with 0 Knock Down. 28.57% Catch Allowed Rate.

So as you can see the LBs play a huge part in me denying QBs easy passes. None allow over 46.34% of the times they are targeted to be completed. Just the LBs (not counting Bolden) they go 97 Thrown At with 41 Catch Allowed and 3 INT for a Catch Allowed Rate of 42.27%.

Add in that all 3 LBs converted over 65 Tackles Each (66, 66, 68)... now add in that they MISSED 26, 16 and 26 Tackles for an additional OPPORTUNITY of 68 Tackles (Rookies had really low Tackle starting their Season).

So while my FS and SS have 108 and 77 Tackles, and my CB1 has 67 Tackles... I wouldn't want to be without my LBs. They get a LOT of work done for my Defense with their Coverage and their 36 Sacks.

Add in great Coverage by my Safeties, and great Sacks by my DE... you start to get a really good Defense. (Need to upgrade my CBs and I'll be a true force on D.)

Alot has to due with the plays called by the offenses that faced your defense. If they passed alot against you your DBs will lead your team in tackles. The formation you put out has alot to due with it also. The SLB doesnt play in nickel formations as well as dime formation. Unless you override.

Like other said it is harder to evalute LBS but more ratings the better because he will be more effective at what ever you decide to call. After that i would match ratings wih scheme.

Get a pass rush LB to play DE in pass rush situations and maybe find a guy who is great at covering zone and have him lurk the middle in that same play.

4-6 formation has LBs on the line and the SS lines up closer to the line to help with run plays. It makes a slight difference when deciding plays to run vs. certian offenses.

Run key helps all the guys get to the ball carrier quickly, but becareful you might get beat deep.

Slow LBs fill run gaps and passing zones, but are slower andcover much less ground. I play them in the red zone alot more. I like everybody fast but find the MLB needs to be a bit faster to match with backs and OLBs a bit slower to match with FBs or TEs.

And like your SLB in 10 i might question his pursiut of the ball carrier. Great athletic ability but 20 run defense might rule him out as a three down MLB for my liking. Blitz or put him in cover more often.

as ever thanks ray for your detailed feedback - most of which I understood! :0

My advice would be to categorize what racha LB does best, then check all your plays and use overrides to or your best LBs for each formation into each one.
Got a LB who can't man cover but is good in zone? If your 4-3 Under plays your WLB primarily in Zone, use overrides to place him there. Do the same thing for blitzing LBs, man coverage, red zone, etc. More so than any other defensive position, LBs work best specialized.

thanks that sort of makes sense although I do also feel like you've just thrown every nfl term at me in one paragraph! :0
much appreciated