Colts Zaire Franklin received a noteworthy tip of the helmet from ESPN’s annual league survey at linebacker.
According to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler, while he wasn’t chosen among the top ten players at his position, Indianapolis Colts linebacker Zaire Franklin received an honorable mention ahead of the 2025 campaign, per an annual league survey:
Zaire Franklin, Indianapolis Colts: ”Blue collar, ultimate motor guy that can get a lot of tackles and set a good tone. Not dynamic as far as playmaking in the open field or the backfield.” — NFC executive
The results of the league survey are taken from NFL coaches, executives, and scouts alike and published by ESPN’s Fowler every offseason annually.
Having been named to an NFL 2nd-Team All-Pro and Pro Bowler for the first time in his career during 2024, it’s a little surprising for Franklin to not crack the bottom of the Top 10.
Most notably, he led the league in combined tackles (173) last year.
That being said, he had a very slow start to begin this past season and racking up a bunch of tackles on a below average defense collectively doesn’t necessarily make you a star player out there.
It wasn’t that long ago that veteran linebacker D’Qwell Jackson was named a Pro Bowler for the Colts back in 2014 for similar reasons, despite clearly being a bit long in the tooth.
It’s nice to have a knack for finding the football, but it’s also not everything at the position.
However, Franklin did play better football down the 2024 season’s final stretch run, and the defensive team captain for Indianapolis is looking to salvage his public reputation a bit—having arguably spent too much time trash talking on his podcast, but not always backing it up out there on the field in proper order.
It’s fair to say that Franklin, when really going right, is one of the better off-the-ball starting linebackers in all of football—even if he lacks some of the dynamic playmaking of another former Indianapolis All-Pro linebacker (and ex-teammate) Darius ‘Shaquille’ Leonard.
For Franklin, he’s been a great story going from 7th round pick to special teams standout to starter to an All-Pro linebacker, but some of that success may have arguably gotten to his head this past season—and he may need to return to the ’grinding’ and ‘junkyard dog’ mentality that initially made him special and a fan favorite in Indianapolis.