{"id":100225,"date":"2025-06-03T08:29:16","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T08:29:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/100225\/"},"modified":"2025-06-03T08:29:16","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T08:29:16","slug":"where-does-colts-lb-zaire-franklin-land-in-pffs-rankings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/100225\/","title":{"rendered":"Where does Colts’ LB Zaire Franklin land in PFF’s rankings?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Where does Indianapolis Colts’ LB Zaire Franklin land in PFF’s annual rankings?<\/p>\n

Pro Football Focus<\/a> put together their linebacker rankings ahead of the 2025 NFL season, and low on that list was the Indianapolis Colts’<\/a> Zaire Franklin.<\/p>\n

Mason Cameron, who put the list together, ranked the top 32 linebackers and put them into tiers. Coming in at No. 27 and in tier five was Franklin.<\/p>\n

“Franklin continues to be a tackling machine with impressive volume, posting more than 500 total tackles over the past three seasons,” wrote Cameron. “However, he is largely hampered by a high rate of negatively graded run snaps (14% since 2022) and subpar PFF coverage grades. Limiting mistakes in 2025 could raise his profile beyond just a tackler.”<\/p>\n

Like any player, Franklin has areas of his game that can improve. According to PFF’s metrics<\/a>, he had a missed tackle rate of 11.6% last season, and quarterbacks were efficient when targeting him in coverage.<\/p>\n

But the 27th-ranked linebacker? After a season where he was named a second-team All-Pro? Those two things don’t seem to align.<\/p>\n

Franklin led the NFL in tackles last season. He also forced four fumbles, which was tied for the second-most among all linebackers, and came away with two interceptions as well. Combined, the six forced takeaways were among the most at his position group.<\/p>\n

In Lou Anarumo’s defense, Franklin should see more opportunities to get after the quarterback, and the usage of defensive backs<\/a>, along with this being a more disguise-heavy scheme, should help the front seven as a whole have a greater impact in 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Where does Indianapolis Colts’ LB Zaire Franklin land in PFF’s annual rankings? Pro Football Focus put together their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100226,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2059],"tags":[247,265,2005,7,2740,2004,392,2381,248,267,246,88,6,245,264,818,817,829,9,266,819,776,13572,4995],"class_list":{"0":"post-100225","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-indianapolis-colts","8":"tag-american","9":"tag-american-football","10":"tag-colts","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-franklin","13":"tag-indianapolis","14":"tag-indianapolis-colts","15":"tag-indianapoliscolts","16":"tag-national","17":"tag-national-sports","18":"tag-neutral","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-nfl","21":"tag-overall","22":"tag-overall-neutral","23":"tag-scores","24":"tag-sport","25":"tag-sport-scores-u0026-statistics","26":"tag-sports","27":"tag-sports-news","28":"tag-statistics","29":"tag-u0026","30":"tag-zaire","31":"tag-zaire-franklin"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114618496706793748","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}