Isaiah
Simmons.
Isaiah
Simmons.
Clemson· 6'4"· 238 lb· 4.39s 40
"The most versatile defender the college game had produced in years, and the hardest to file: Isaiah Simmons was a bet that positionless football had finally arrived and that one athlete could cover every square of the field."Pre-draft read
Simmons is a 6-4, 238-pound chess piece who lined up at every defensive spot Clemson had. He played free safety, slot corner, box linebacker and edge rusher in the same games, and the speed is real — he runs with tight ends down the seam and closes on screens from twelve yards away. The range in space is the headline trait.
As a blitzer he is a problem because of timing and length rather than technique, arriving off the edge or through the A-gap before the protection identifies him. The concerns live between the tackles: he takes on blocks with his frame rather than his hands, and against downhill run games he can get walled off. His value comes from what he removes from an offense's plan, not from stacking and shedding.
Multiple, disguise-heavy defense with a designated joker role that moves one defender by matchup each week
Year 1 sub-package weapon covering tight ends and blitzing; ceiling is an All-Pro joker who dictates how offenses set protections
A rigid two-gap defense that asks him to play downhill Mike linebacker and take on pulling guards every snap
His grade is only as good as the coordinator's imagination — the role has to be designed before the pick is made
Isaiah Simmons 2019 Season Highlights | Clemson LB
ACC Defensive Player of the Year season across every alignment he played.
Clemson LB Isaiah Simmons Highlight Reel - 2019 Season
Coverage reps on tight ends and slot receivers plus blitz finishes.
Clemson LB Isaiah Simmons vs LSU (2019 National Championship)
Full-game cut-up against the best offense he faced in college.
Simmons is the rarest kind of prospect, an athlete whose position is whatever the defensive coordinator needs on a given snap. The football identity is speed and length applied everywhere: he covers slot receivers and tight ends, runs the alley, rushes off the edge and plays deep middle. Clemson used him as the hub of a national-title defense and never settled on a single label.
The junior season is why he is a top-ten pick. He posted 103 tackles with 16 for loss, seven sacks, three interceptions, seven passes defensed and a forced fumble, winning ACC Defensive Player of the Year and consensus All-America honors. Across 45 career games he totaled 238 tackles, 29 for loss, 9.5 sacks, four interceptions and 19 passes defensed, and his 4.39 forty at 238 pounds in Indianapolis confirmed what the tape suggested about his speed.
The risk is definitional. A defender without a home position is only as good as the staff deploying him, and the film shows a player who is very good at many things rather than elite at one. Teams that already have a scheme identity valued him near the top of the board; teams looking for an off-ball linebacker who can take on guards had reservations. Arizona, with a coordinator promising creative usage, took him at eight.
- 01
Extraordinary athletic profile
6-4 and 238 pounds with 4.39 speed, giving him the range to cover ground no defender that size should reach.
- 02
True positional versatility
Took snaps at free safety, slot, box linebacker and edge rusher in the same game without a drop in production.
- 03
Coverage on tight ends
Carries seam routes step for step and has the length to contest at the catch point downfield.
- 04
Blitz timing
Seven sacks and 16 tackles for loss as a junior arriving off the edge and through interior gaps before protections adjust.
- 05
Elite closing speed in space
Erases screens, swings and perimeter runs from depth, turning short completions into no gain.
- 01
Block deconstruction
Absorbs blocks with his body instead of striking with his hands, and offensive linemen wall him off at the second level.
- 02
Undefined position
Success depends heavily on a staff designing a role for him rather than plugging him into a standard job.
- 03
Downhill run fits
Gets washed out of gaps when he attacks with poor pad level against power run games between the tackles.
- 04
One year of top production
The junior season is the entire resume; before that he was a rotational safety with 45 and 89 tackle campaigns.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.39sp50
- Vertical
- 39inp50
- Broad jump
- 132inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Clemson | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2017 | Clemson | 14 | 45 | 1 | 0 | 6 | 1 |
| 2018 | Clemson | 15 | 89 | 1.5 | 1 | 6 | 3 |
| 2019 | Clemson | 15 | 103 | 7 | 3 | 7 | 1 |
| Career | — | 45 | 238 | 9.5 | 4 | 19 | 5 |
Sports-Reference totals including bowl and playoff games; season sums match the career line exactly in every column.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Athletic hybrid whose usage swings year to year and whose value depends on the staff's plan.
Positionless defender who covers, blitzes and tackles at an All-Pro level from three different alignments.
Tweener drafted high who bounces between safety and linebacker without ever owning either job.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Arizona used Simmons everywhere and never found the answer. He played 16 games as a rookie with 54 tackles, then produced his best two years in 2021 and 2022 with 105 and 99 total tackles, 5.5 combined sacks and six forced fumbles, including a scoop-and-score. The Cardinals declined his fifth-year option, moved him to safety under Jonathan Gannon, then traded him to the Giants in August 2023 for a seventh-round pick. New York got 50 tackles and a pick-six from him in 2023 and used him mostly on special teams in 2024, when he made 21 tackles. He signed with Carolina for 2025 and played five games with two tackles, and he has appeared in one game in 2026.
This is the class's cautionary tale about traits without a position. Simmons never became bad — he has 331 career tackles, 8.5 sacks and nine forced fumbles across 89 games — but the player picked eighth overall was supposed to be a defensive centerpiece, and by year four he was a special-teams contributor changing teams on minimum-level deals. The scouting report named the exact failure mode: he needed a coordinator to build around him, and the three staffs he played for asked him to be a conventional linebacker or safety instead. Arizona passed on Justin Jefferson, Tristan Wirfs and CeeDee Lamb to take him.
Data note: 2019 Dick Butkus Award winner