- Devin White’s resurgence creates the perfect sell window: White delivered an elite IDP season, though with so many question marks and likely regression, he’ll be one to trade and profit from ASAP this offseason.
- Unlock your edge with PFF+: Access Premium Stats, dominate fantasy with tools and projections and make smarter bets with the new PFF Player Prop Tool. Get 25% off your PFF+ annual subscription with code PFFFANTASYPODCAST25.
Estimated Reading Time: 11minutes
Dynasty players will head into the fantasy football offseason shortly when fantasy platforms switch over to 2026 following the Super Bowl, which will open up trades for managers looking to get an early start on improving their rosters for next season.
At linebacker, we’re looking at players who either had smaller roles in 2025 with the potential to earn a larger role in 2026, or players who underperformed but should naturally improve.
On the other hand, players whom we’ll look to move on from include those who either overperformed in 2025 and are set to regress, as well as those whose roles are likely to decline next season.
The full list of top IDP scorers, scoring settings and production versus expected numbers can be found here.
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Leo Chenal, Kansas City Chiefs
- Highest ideal trade price to acquire (draft picks): Late 2026 third-round pick
IDP managers have long hoped that Chenal would take on a larger role, but for the entirety of his rookie contract in Kansas City, he was stuck as the team’s base linebacker, seeing the field only in three-linebacker sets.
The reason for optimism with Chenal dates back to his time in college as a high-end tackler with a promising IDP profile. The third-round pick out of Wisconsin even earned an 8.28 score in our IDP linebacker prospect model back in 2022, putting him in a bucket with a 39% hit rate of top-12 IDP linebackers, 58% for the top 24 and 73% for the top 36 — none of which Chenal has achieved just yet.
Chenal is a pending free agent who should be looking for a larger, and hopefully full-time, role on a new team. He has been an effective tackler when given the opportunity in Kansas City, outperforming his expected tackles in each of the past three seasons while earning strong PFF coverage grades in 2024 and 2025. He showed that he could potentially play the every-down role we crave for IDP purposes.
The cost to acquire Chenal shouldn’t be too high, even for the most optimistic of IDP managers, especially before free agency, as there’s always the risk that he will re-sign. However, considering the Chiefs' investment in Nick Bolton last offseason and Drue Tranquill‘s contract keeping him in Kansas City for another year, the more likely outcome is that Chenal will find a new team this offseason.
While the highest price to pay would be a late third, we’ll aim for less than that before free agency, if possible.
Edgerrin Cooper, Green Bay Packers
- Highest ideal trade price to acquire (draft picks): Early 2026 third-round pick + a mid-to-late 2026 fourth-round pick
Cooper will be the most costly linebacker to acquire on this list, considering he’s a young second-round pick with a likely long NFL career ahead of him. However, he is coming off a very disappointing sophomore season, so his value may have dipped enough to make him worth acquiring for IDP dynasty managers in need of a stable long-term option at the position.
Cooper entered the 2025 season with real IDP breakout potential. While he finished the campaign as the overall LB25 — technically a breakout compared to his rookie year (LB44) — it wasn’t quite the season that IDP managers had in mind, as he was often drafted much higher than that in redraft leagues this offseason.
Cooper, much like Leo Chenal, scored very well in the linebacker prospect model (8.45), landing in the same hit rate bucket. He has hit on his top-36 potential already, although he should still be viewed as one of the best bets to reach the top 24 — and even the top 12 still. With that in mind, Cooper’s inefficiency as a tackler this season was a surprise after last year. He also landed significantly more big plays in 2024, including 3.5 sacks and an interception on fewer snaps. This year, he secured only a half-sack.
Quay Walker may walk in free agency, as the team did not pick up his fifth-year option, although it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him stay on in Green Bay. Either way, Cooper’s role isn’t likely to change that much, as he was already an every-down linebacker due for some big-play regression with the potential to improve as a tackler.
With that in mind, IDP managers should feel more than comfortable giving up an early third-round pick to secure Cooper. If you need to throw in a sweetener to get the deal done, then that’s a move to be happy with for 2026 and beyond.
Ventrell Miller, Jacksonville Jaguars
- Highest ideal trade price to acquire (draft picks): Mid 2026 fourth-round pick
The Jaguars are dealing with an unideal cap situation heading into the 2026 offseason, and with Devin Lloyd set to hit the open market after the team did not pick up his fifth-year option, they are more than likely going to rely on their draft picks at linebacker to fill that hole in 2026.
While Jack Kiser owns a stronger prospect profile (8.09 model score) than Miller (7.35), the team has clearly shown a tendency to prefer Miller for the time being, and IDP managers should adjust accordingly.
Miller consistently worked as the next man up behind both Foyesade Oluokun and Lloyd in 2025. If Lloyd departs, the now-experienced Miller should handle a much larger role in 2026. With both Oluokun and Lloyd healthy for the majority of this season, Miller started only two games, averaging 89% of the snaps in those two games. His potential to play a near full-time role in 2026 will be valuable for IDP, regardless of whether he’s overly efficient. That being said, Miller has performed at least slightly above expected in the tackle column in each of his first two seasons.
Miller is a low-cost, high-reward gamble to make this offseason due to his lack of a track record and uncertain full-time role. Ideally, you can acquire him for next to nothing, but a fourth-round pick should get the deal done if there’s any resistance before free agency.
LINEBACKERS TO TRADE AWAY
Devin White, Las Vegas Raiders
- Minimum ideal trade return (draft picks): Early 2026 fourth-round pick
White is coming off a bounce-back IDP season, finishing as the overall LB2 on the year after ranking second in the league in total tackles and winning our Comeback IDP of the Year award. All of that being said, White is unlikely to reach those heights again in 2026, for a variety of reasons.
The first is that White is set to become a free agent this offseason, so even if he lands on a new team, he’ll enter a different defensive system. His general struggles as an NFL linebacker mean teams aren’t likely to jump at the chance to sign him as a full-time player, which has been the case in most recent offseasons.
Even if White were to re-sign with the Raiders, they are in the midst of coaching staff changes, so systems and the players within those systems are likely to be affected. White also brings a long history of inefficient tackling, as highlighted in the graphic below — with 2025 being a likely outlier for his career.
IDP managers likely acquired White for next to nothing this offseason, so trading him for anything is already going to be a profit. However, because of his production in 2025, that profit should be even better. And managers should be taking advantage of that as soon as possible. If White’s offseason goes anything like the past three or four years, his value will likely sink quickly, so be sure not to delay in trying to move him.
Tatum Bethune, San Francisco 49ers
- Minimum ideal trade return (draft picks): 2026 late fourth-round pick
Bethune greatly outperformed expectations in 2025, stepping in for the injured Fred Warner and immediately becoming San Francisco’s most efficient tackler and a weekly IDP starter. Unfortunately, Bethune’s role and value stemmed purely from Warner's absence. Warner was pushing for a return from injury should the 49ers have advanced in the NFL playoffs, making Bethune’s value once again that of an injury-dependent fill-in for 2026.
Warner and Bethune both sat out in the NFL playoffs, which IDP managers can use to their advantage for an opportunity to sell, as there wasn’t clear confirmation that Bethune wouldn’t be a starter alongside Warner.
However, everything the 49ers have shown us, including before Warner’s injury, is that Dee Winters is the LB2 in the defense. Winters has been ineffective for IDP, but the 49ers trust him more to start. Waiver-wire stars like Bethune come and go every season, and it’s always worth sending them out in offers on the chance that someone is willing to take them off your hands.