Teams are looking for positionless players more than ever.
I spoke with several NFL head coaches and general managers last week about the increasing number of NCAA defensive players who played more than 100 snaps at three or more different positions last season, and how that aligns with a new NFL mindset which appreciates versatility more than ever. Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer may have had the most technically interesting response.
“The league has basically turned into a single-high [safety] league,” Zimmer said. “Everybody is there, putting safeties down in the box or using safeties as linebackers. The way the game is widened out and gotten more space, you’re going to find smaller, faster linebackers or safeties that can take those guys places. Or guys like the guys you mentioned that really can play in the back end, but they do a lot of damage at the line of scrimmage with blitzing and pressure.”
I focused on three such players in the aforementioned article — Alabama’s Xavier McKinney, LSU’s Grant Delpit, and Clemson’s Isaiah Simmons. Of the three, Simmons became certainly the belle of the ball — and perhaps the star of the entire combine — when he ran a 4.39 40-yard dash at 6-foot-4 and 238 pounds. And then, he did a bunch of other stuff to just wreck the combine entirely.
#Clemson LB Isaiah Simmons
6-4 (93rd percentile)
39” vert (92nd percentile)
11’0” broad (98th percentile)
4.39 40-yard (99th percentile)This is Earth’s greatest defender pic.twitter.com/uXboqqGT0Z
— Trevor Sikkema (@TampaBayTre) March 1, 2020
As the NFL Network pointed out, Simmons’ 40 was faster than the dashes run by these Clemson receivers: Martavis Bryant (4.42 in 2014), Sammy Watkins (4.43 in 2014), and DeAndre Hopkins (4.57 in 2013). That’s just freaky.
Expect McKinney, Delpit, and most certainly Simmons to go fairly early in the first round, with Simmons looking more and more like a top-five lock. And expect the trend of the the positionless defensive player to continue in the NFL.