Trenton
Simpson.
Trenton
Simpson.
Clemson· 6'2"· 235 lb· 4.43s 40
"A linebacker built out of straight-line speed and blitz burst, whose NFL value will always hinge on whether the processing between his ears ever catches up to the 4.43 in his legs."Pre-draft read
Simpson is a track-and-field second-level defender who plays fastest when the defense lets him attack forward. Clemson deployed him as a movable chess piece — off-ball SAM in base, stand-up rusher on passing downs, occasional nickel-blitz trigger — and his best snaps all look the same: a clean read, a downhill line, and a closing burst that arrives before the blocker can widen. His 12.5 career sacks and 22.5 tackles for loss came almost entirely on designed pressure or unblocked run fits where the answer was decided pre-snap.
In coverage he carries backs and tight ends down the seam with legitimate man-to-man speed, and his change of direction underneath is smoother than his 240-pound frame suggests. The trouble shows up when the picture is muddy. Against duo and gap-scheme runs he tends to sit, read, and drift laterally rather than fill, and once linemen climb to the second level he lacks the hand violence and pad-level discipline to shed. He is a runner more than a striker — a defender who wins by arriving early, not by stacking and holding.
Attacking one-gap four-man front with a nickel-heavy base that lets him run downhill on declared keys and pressure from depth.
Year 1: sub-package coverage and pressure linebacker plus special-teams core. Ceiling: three-down WILL beside a true diagnosing MIKE who makes the calls for him.
A two-gap 3-4 that stacks him over a guard and asks him to hold the point against down blocks — the exact snaps where his processing and shed both fail.
He is a run-and-hit piece, not a run-fit anchor; the scheme has to keep his eyes clean.
Scariest LB in the Country | Trenton Simpson 2022 Clemson Highlights
Junior-year Clemson tape: the volume-tackle season with the blitz reps sprinkled in.
Trenton Simpson 2021 Clemson Highlights
The signature sophomore year — 12 TFL and 6 sacks of designed pressure and downhill triggers.
Trenton Simpson Highlights - BULLET - Ravens 2025
NFL rotational tape showing the closing speed that keeps earning him snaps in Baltimore.
Simpson arrived at Clemson as a five-star hybrid and immediately gave the Tigers' staff something to design around. As a true freshman in 2020 he played 12 games and posted 28 tackles with 6.5 tackles for loss and 4.0 sacks — production almost entirely generated as a designed rusher out of the nickel package. His 2021 sophomore season was the signature year: 13 games, 64 tackles, 12.0 tackles for loss and 6.0 sacks, numbers that made him one of the most disruptive off-ball defenders in the ACC.
The 2022 junior year complicated the evaluation. Moved into a more traditional off-ball role, Simpson set a career high in tackles (72 in 12 games) but his splash production collapsed to 4.0 tackles for loss and 2.5 sacks. Evaluators read that dip two ways: either the scheme stopped feeding him free runs, or the more he was asked to diagnose, the slower he played. Over 37 career games he finished with 164 tackles, 22.5 tackles for loss, 12.5 sacks, 5 pass breakups and 3 forced fumbles.
At the 2023 Combine he ran 4.43 in the forty with a 1.55 ten-yard split at 6-2 5/8 and 235 pounds, and put up 25 bench reps, but skipped the jumps and both agility drills — leaving the change-of-direction question unanswered on the testing sheet. The board consensus settled him in the Day 2 range as the class' highest-upside athletic linebacker with the widest gap between traits and instincts. Baltimore took him at 86 and bet the processing would develop next to Roquan Smith.
- 01
Elite closing speed
4.43 forty with a 1.55 ten-yard split at 235 pounds, and it shows in pursuit angles from the far hash.
- 02
Blitz timing
12.5 career sacks came from a genuine feel for when to trigger and a burst that beats backs to the landmark.
- 03
Seam coverage range
carries tight ends and backs vertically in man without the panic grab most 240-pound linebackers resort to.
- 04
Scheme versatility
logged real reps as an off-ball SAM, stand-up edge and nickel blitzer without looking miscast in any of them.
- 05
Downhill trigger on clean reads
when the key is unobstructed he plants and fills at full speed, arriving before the block can set.
- 01
Delayed processing
reads develop late against duo and gap runs, and the extra beat turns his speed advantage into a wash.
- 02
Block deconstruction
lacks the hand violence and leverage to stack and shed once a lineman climbs cleanly to the second level.
- 03
Production dip on volume snaps
splash numbers fell from 12.0 TFL to 4.0 the year he was asked to diagnose rather than attack.
- 04
Untested agility profile
skipped the jumps, three-cone and shuttle at the Combine, leaving the short-area question open on tape alone.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.43sp50
- Vertical
- —in
- Broad jump
- —in
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- 25repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Clemson | 12 | 28 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 2021 | Clemson | 13 | 64 | 6 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| 2022 | Clemson | 12 | 72 | 2.5 | 0 | 3 | 2 |
| Career | — | 37 | 164 | 12.5 | 0 | 5 | 3 |
Season-by-season and career totals verified on cfbstats.com (2020-2022 Clemson player pages); the three seasons sum exactly to the career line. Clemson's own athletics bio lists 187 career tackles and 6 pass breakups — that discrepancy is unresolved, so the cfbstats figures are used. Interceptions and fumble recoveries are not published on his cfbstats pages and are left blank rather than assumed to be zero.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Sub-package and situational value with real starts on the resume, but a role that expands and contracts with the defensive plan rather than anchoring it.
Same profile of rare linebacker speed and blitz burst reaching a competent full-time starter level once the processing stabilizes.
Athletic linebacker who settles into a special-teams core and rotational defensive role without ever locking down a three-down job.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Three seasons in Baltimore: a special-teams rookie year in 2023 (15 games, 13 tackles, 1 sack), a 13-start run as the starting inside linebacker next to Roquan Smith in 2024 (73 tackles, 1.5 sacks, 4 PD), and a 2025 season that began on the bench behind rookie Teddye Buchanan before he reclaimed a starting role in December (17 games, 6 starts, 66 tackles, 2.5 sacks). Made the Ravens' 2026 initial 53-man roster with an expanded, movable role.
The bet took longer than Baltimore planned. Simpson spent his rookie 2023 season almost entirely on teams, playing 15 games with zero starts and logging just 13 tackles, one sack and a fumble recovery in a handful of defensive snaps. The 2024 season handed him the job: he opened as the starting inside linebacker next to Smith and started 13 games, finishing with 73 tackles (40 solo), 1.5 sacks and 4 passes defensed across 17 appearances. It was functional, not decisive — and by December his snap share had been trimmed in favor of veteran help.
The 2025 season stripped the job entirely. Rookie Teddye Buchanan won the starting spot out of camp and Simpson opened the year as a rotational piece, carving out sub-package and special-teams value before reclaiming a starting role in December when Buchanan's knee ended his season. He played all 17 games with 6 starts, 66 tackles and 2.5 sacks. Entering 2026 he made the 53-man roster at 25 years old with an expanded, movable role. The honest read three years in: Simpson is a real NFL defender and a bad bet as a full-time MIKE — a Day 2 pick whose traits keep earning him snaps while the diagnosis he was drafted to develop still arrives a beat late.
Data note: College production verified season-by-season on cfbstats.com; NFL season lines verified against the ESPN athlete stats API (2023-2025). 2026 roster status verified via Ravens 53-man roster coverage (Aug 30, 2026).