The linebacker position has seen a severe depreciation in recent years. Once upon a time, a defense wasn’t considered complete unless it had a potent linebacking corps. Now, defense is often played with just two, or one, linebacker on the field.
It isn’t that linebackers are getting worse, so much as offenses are getting that much faster. As a result, teams just don’t draft as many of them, and when they do, they look more like safeties from a decade ago.
Iowa linebacker Jack Campbell looks to be an outlier in that trend. Campbell not only has an excellent “linebacker” name, but he has throwback size and modern athleticism.