I’m a pretty big NFL fan but I still haven’t figured this out, it seems that having an elite linebacker can elevate a defense substantially so why then is linebacker rarely ever chosen in the top 5 and why are top linebacker prospects almost never considered for the 1st pick of the draft? I get why teams don’t go CB, WR, TE, RB and S with the 1st pick since they can be pulled out of a play unlike QBs and DEs but why no love for linebackers?
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The NFL and its teams are all ultimately businesses. Defense wins games but it doesn’t necessarily win fans which translate to revenue. It’s basically the ‘meta game’ of the NFL (and really all sports) to use an outsized portion of a team’s salary budget on star offensive players because that’s what people want to see, and that’s the way the league has implicitly agreed to operate. Teams actually pay a huge premium on early picks despite plenty of evidence to suggest that playing “moneyball” is the smarter move if the only consideration is actually winning games.
[Here’s an academic paper](https://www.nber.org/papers/w11270) that details precisely how overvalued top draft picks are.
And just for fun, [an article](https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/05/sports/football/05romer.html) about a guy who basically proved that going for it on every 4th down is statistically bound to win more games, but that doesn’t jibe with the ‘meta game’ either.
LB isn’t a high priority position. Would you rather have the best LB in history or the 10th best QB, DE, LT, WR or conner? Position value matters and in the modern nfl lb is near the bottom of the list.
Linebackers are sort of a jack-of-all-trades position. They need to rush, they need to pursue and tackle, and they need to defend against the pass. This makes them the most pure position athletically, as they need to be able to do a little bit of everything, but that also makes them not very good at being the best at any one particular thing. They aren’t quite big enough be the biggest rushing force, and they aren’t quite nimble enough the be the best man-coverage pass defenders. That makes them rarely the “best” option available when you have particular holes you need filled in your lineup. But having a good linebacker is a tremendous help to the rest of your roster, since they can cover for a lot of deficiencies.
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