Former Nebraska football star Lavonte David was recently named as the number two linebacker in the NFL by Pro Football Focus.
Lavonte David is what Nebraska football linebackers should aspire to be. Not only was he one of the most dominant defenders at the college level during his days as a Husker, but he’s one of the most dominant linebackers in the NFL.
That last fact was confirmed earlier this week when Pro Football Focus listed him as the number two linebacker in the league according to their grading scale. David just finished his sixth year in the NFL (all with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers) and topped 100 tackles for the fifth time.
In 2017, he managed to rack up 101 tackles despite the fact that he missed three games due to injury. Interestingly enough, despite being graded as the second best backer in the entire league, this was the first year that David did not record a single sack.
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On the flipside, he did log a career-high five fumbles forced and recovered. Over the course of his career, he has forced an impressive 17 fumbles and recovered 11 of them.
David has seen his tackle numbers drop off the last couple of seasons. When he entered the NFL, including starting 16 games as a rookie in 2012, he routinely logged more than 130 tackles a season. In fact, he had a stretch of four straight seasons with at least 139 combined tackles.
Respect this man!
— Nebraska Football (@HuskerFootball) January 11, 2018
✊ @LavonteDavid54 #ProBigRed #GBR pic.twitter.com/ND6ZCwkEjV
2016 saw that streak come to an end when he logged just 87 combined tackles. In total, Lavonte David has 765 career tackles and 18 sacks.
That level of play has given the Nebraska football team a player they could point to as someone who has made the jump from the college level to starting in the NFL. The program has had too few of those in the last decade.