Zaire Franklin Deep Dive

This type of play in the backfield has been a constant for Zaire Franklin throughout his career.

The second thing I noticed with Franklin was his comfort when playing traditional spot drop zones. He does a fine job passing off receivers as they cross in and out of his zone. He’s not the most fluid athlete, but he does show a solid understanding of where he’s supposed to be on the field. 

I felt this play was a great example of Zaire Franklin’s comfort when playing the hook zone. Watch him drop back to take away the dig route to St. Brown before firing down to make the tackle on the underneath receiver. I know this play still ends in a completion, but the spatial awareness is still on full display here. 

Weaknesses: 

At this point in his career, Zaire Franklin is not anywhere near the athlete that the departing Quay Walker is. At times he can get away with that, but at other points it is painfully evident. 

This mostly becomes a problem in coverage. Franklin just isn’t able to cover for very long. Whether it’s man, match, or zone coverage, if the pass rush doesn’t get home quickly, then he’ll be in trouble. 

I watched a 2025 matchup against the Chargers where this was incredibly obvious. Franklin really struggled to cover Oronde Gadsden II, the Chargers tight end, in that game. Franklin was beat clean plenty of times, but the Chargers offensive line play was so horrendous that Justin Herbert rarely had time to target Zaire Franklin. 

It’s to the point where I wonder if Zaire is still a 3 down linebacker at this point in his career. There’s just certain coverages you don’t want him playing in. A specific example I noticed in that Chargers game was how he looked whenever the Colts went to Tampa-2 coverages. 

Franklin just doesn’t have the fluidity and speed to flip his hips and cover the deep middle. It was a problem for Indy, and it has me thinking the Packers may need to devise ways to get Zaire Franklin off the field for critical passing downs. 

The second weakness that comes up is the tackling. Zaire Franklin was bottom ten in the league as far as missed tackle rate goes in 2025. That’s not a one off for him either. Franklin has missed more than 20 tackles in each of the last 4 seasons. 

I watched 4 full games of his this week. 2 from 2024 and 2 from 2025. Zaire had at least 1 missed tackle in each of those games. The interesting thing was that each of the missed tackles was completely unique from the others. One time he’d fly in like a missile and leave himself susceptible to a juke, then later he’d get trucked by a bigger running back, and then he’d top it all off by just failing to wrap up. 

So long story short, Zaire Franklin is an inconsistent tackler and we can’t expect it to improve much at this point. 

Recap: 

I don’t think Zaire Franklin is going to be anybody’s favorite player in Green Bay. He can be a solid linebacker, but he has real weaknesses that will hold him back from ever becoming a star for our defense. 

That being said, I feel that fans often undervalue the power of solid/serviceable linebacker play. To illustrate this, let’s go through a little thought exercise. 

I want you to think in your head of all the very good-elite linebackers in the NFL. Name as many to yourself as you can.

Here’s the list that I came up with: 

• Fred Warner
• Zach Baun
• Roquan Smith
• Jack Campbell 
• Devin Lloyd 
• Edgerrin Cooper 
• Carson Schwesinger  

I’m sure there’s one or two that I am missing, but the point of this is to illustrate how scarce truly elite linebacker play is in the NFL. 

The other notable thing about the linebacker market in the NFL right now is how the contracts are oddly clumped together. The cost of these elite linebackers is barely different from that of just an average linebacker. See the negligible salary difference between Quay Walker and Devin Lloyd for proof. 

This is why I can’t fault the Green Bay Packers for what they did with Zaire Franklin. They saw that Quay Walker was clearly going to get paid quite a bit more than what his play had warranted. Then, they smartly decided against paying an average linebacker a nearly elite level contract. 

The contingency plan involved this trade for Zaire Franklin, and gives them a solid linebacker on a much more cost controlled contract. 

In totality, I think the Packers would be pretty happy with even league average play from Zaire Franklin in 2026. I do think Franklin can reach that level still, but I don’t think he’ll ascend much past that. However, getting potentially average linebacker play at a fair price is good business, even if it lacks upside. I don’t think this move prohibits the Packers from further addressing the LB position, but it also allows them to focus resources elsewhere if they would prefer.