Darius Leonard's Madden Rating is Disrespectful

Darius Leonard is, without question, one of the best linebackers in football. Since entering the league in 2018, Leonard is the only player to have racked up at least 250 tackles, 6 or more forced fumbles and at least 7 interceptions. He's simply one of the most versatile and productive players in the sport.

Even if we took 2017 into account (when Leonard was in college) there's still not another defender in the league who has reached that threshold. But despite being one of the most unique commodities in football, Leonard's "Madden 21" rating is still shockingly low.

Leonard has inexplicably been rated an 85 overall. Simply put, that's laughable.

He finished as PFF's sixth-highest-graded linebacker among players with at least 800 snaps played, yet he's only tied for the 14th-best linebacker in the game. What else does Leonard have to do to get national recognition?

He's been either a Pro Bowler or first-team All-Pro in each of his first two seasons in the league, and he's put up gaudy numbers despite having missed 4 total games during that span.

Hopefully Leonard's "Madden 21" rating will rise to where it belongs once the season gets underway.

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Max Staley is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Max Staley also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username mstaley1212. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in their articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.