Welcome back to of our Madden NFL 17 Sleeper series and today we’re covering the leaders of the defense the Middle Linebackers. Let’s get right into it.
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Sam Barrington (Green Bay Packers)
25 Years Old
73 Overall
87 Tackle
87 Hit Power
79 Zone Coverage
I try not to just point out just all fast players, and give you guys some variety. Barrington is one of those guys if he was 84,85,86 speed he would be top 5 on the list easy. Because he has 87 tackle, 87 hit power, 81 block shed and 80 pursuit. So he can get busy in the run defense and lay guys out across the middle already. Then you see he has 79 zone coverage and I mean don’t hate him because he’s a little slow. Hit up the packer owner in your league for him, it won’t cost much.
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Kwon Alexander (Tampa Bay Buccaneers)
22 Years Old
76 Overall
87 Speed
90 Acceleration
86 Hit Power
He’s a perfect linebacker to run around and control, because of his 87 speed, 86 jump and 86 hit power. He also has 87 pursuit and 79 play rec giving him overall pretty good numbers to work with. The only negative if you can say that is Alexander’s coverage ratings aren’t good, but won’t matter as much if you’re the one user controlling him all the time.
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Preston Brown (Buffalo Bills)
23 Years Old
74 Overall
88 Hit Power
78 Play Recognition
87 Acceleration
Just like Barrington, he’s a bit slow for most people’s liking, so that may get guys off of him, but Brown has a quick development trait, only 23, has 88 hit power and decent play rec and zone coverage to build off of.
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Jordan Hicks (Philadelphia Eagles)
24 Years Old
75 Overall
83 Speed
90 Acceleration
77 Play Rec
Hicks has decent speed and isn’t a big hitter like a lot of the guys on the list, but makes up for it with his 83 Tackle, 85 pursuit 77 Play Rec.
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Darron Lee (New York Jets)
21 Years Old
87 Speed
83 Block Shed
86 Jump
85 Hit Power
At 21, Lee is among the youngest players in madden and also one of the fastest linebacker in the game. He can’t cover or tackle to begin with, but has 85 hit power and 83 block shed which you don’t usually see from the crazy fast rookies.
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Zaviar Gooden (Detroit Lions)
26 Years Old
67 Overall
88 Speed
91 Acceleration
87 Hit Power
He has his own wing, in my madden players hall of game. You know there are those guys that are just easy to control, they play smooth, and Gooden has been one of those guys to me for 3 years. He has 88 speed and 91 acceleration, so he can cover majority of players on offense fine and along with 87 hit power; Gooden is just just fun to run around and cause damage with.
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Su’a Cravens (Washington Redskins)
21 Years Old
71 Overall
84 Speed
75 Catch
83 Hit Power
Cravens is the new kid on the block of linebackers you have to make sure you know where they are when you play Redskin users or teams who have him, because he always seems to make plays when I’m facing him. He was projected as a linebacker/safety hybrid so you know he he’s a cheat code at linebacker. He has 84 speed, 89 acceleration, 75 catch and 83 hit power, so you can best utilize his safeties traits a little closer to the line now. And can take advantage of how young he is to turn him into a beast in your franchise.
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Deion Jones (Atlanta Falcons)
21 Years Old
71 Overall
88 Speed
89 Acceleration
77 Zone Coverage
Also among the youngest players in the whole game, Jones has 87 speed and 89 acceleration to run around with along with 82 block shed, so he isn’t a trash run defender to start. And having 70 man and 77 zone coverage is good for a 25 year old linebacker, let alone somebody whose only 21.
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Benardrick McKinney (Houston Texans)
23 Years Old
78 Overall
93 Agility
93 Acceleration
83 Spin Move
Having 84 Speed, 89 Tackle, 81 block shed and 88 hit power allows him to hold down the middle already and all you got to do is get up his coverage stats to turn him into an all-around linebacker.
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Christian Kirksey (Cleveland Browns)
25 Years Old
80 Overall
90 Speed
94 Agility
91 Elusiveness
89 Spin Move
Kirksey is a good athlete with the 85 speed, and you can user him or let the computer take care of it because of his 83 zone and 78 play rec. He has low hit power and block shed ratings, but he has such nice numbers everywhere for only being 24 he makes it worth it.
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