Why Isaiah Simmons, the NFL draft’s most versatile athlete, must focus on one position

He’s yet to develop the sort of instincts needed to play in the NFL.

One of my favorite Football Twitter staples is the graphic showing how many snaps a versatile defender played at the different positions. You’ve seen them: He played 156 snaps at linebacker! 56 at free safety! He even called 13 plays as defensive coordinator!

Those graphics are awesome. Those players are awesome. We even have a cool name for them: They’re hybrids! If you want to feel like an advanced football thinker, call a player a hybrid. Do it and a “Real Football Guy” badge will arrive in your mailbox in 3-5 business days.

Everybody loves a hybrid player. Or at least the idea. Nobody is going to get excited about a plodding box safety, but you move him to linebacker and all of a sudden you’re on the cutting edge. Remember Deon Buchannon and Mark Barron? They were mediocre safeties before their teams moved them to linebacker and … well, they were middling linebackers, too, but they ran really fast for the position so nobody said anything.

I swear I’m going somewhere with this. Clemson’s Isaiah Simmons (there it is) is this year’s HYBRID PLAYER WHO WILL CHANGE NFL DEFENSES FOREVER.

He checks all of the boxes:

One of those sweet “snaps by position” graphics I alluded to earlier?

Check.

A freakish performance at the combine?

Check.

A Twitter debate about which position he’ll play in the NFL?

Check.

Simmons’ athletic profile makes no sense. He’s tall and long, even by edge rusher standards. He’s fast, even by corner standards. And he’s well built, even by linebacker standards. A 6-foot-4 human being who weighs 239 pounds and runs 4.39 40-yard dash? Yeah, that’s not real.

He’s physically suited to play any position on a defense and that’s how Clemson defensive coordinator Brett Venables deployed him. On first down, he might be manning the deep middle as a safety. One second down he’s in the slot matching a wide receiver. And on third down, he’s blitzing off the edge.

To better illustrate Simmons, I charted and mapped out all of the snaps he played against LSU and South Carolina during the 2019 season. The activity map is color-coded based on the role he was playing on that particular snap.

There’s a lot going on here and it doesn’t really tell us anything we didn’t already know about Simmons. He wore a lot of hats in Clemson’s defense, but I wanted to know which hats he wore best, which should give us a better idea of what he’ll be at the next level.

Is he a linebacker? Is he a safety? Or can he be the do-it-all force he was in college? Let’s try to answer those questions by taking a position-by-position look at Simmons…

Linebacker

Simmons has been listed as a linebacker and that’s the group he worked out with at the combine. I don’t know if that’s where his future lies in the NFL, however. He’s certainly not a Mike linebacker who’s going to plug gaps, take on blockers and make tackles in traffic. That just isn’t his game, as we can see in the activity map if we just isolate the snaps against the run.

Most of the plays Simmons made against the run came in the South Carolina game when he was used as a deep safety and overhang defender, lined up out of the box. And as you’ll see in this cut-up of all his snaps defending the run, almost all of those tackles came on unblocked plays.

If an offensive lineman gets his hands on Simmons, he’s done. Even some tight ends had success blocking him. He looks like one of those safeties-turned-linebackers that we’ve seen fail in the NFL over the past few seasons.

But stopping the run is just one facet of playing an inside linebacker position, and it’s not even the most valuable one. Coverage is far more important and Simmons just happens to be really good at it … at least the kind of coverage assignments NFL inside linebackers are typically expected to carry out.

He can rally to tackle short passes to the perimeter…

He can match tight ends on short routes over the middle…

And he can carry receivers running down the middle of the field…

It’s not surprising that a dude with 4.39 speed is able to carry out these tasks, and it’s something you’d expect out of any linebacker prospect expected to go in the first round. What separates the special linebackers and the rest are the instincts in coverage that I don’t believe Simmons has at this point in his development. The Bobby Wagners and Fred Warners of the world can make those athletic plays but they also have a good understanding of route concepts and how offenses are trying to bait them to open up throwing windows downfield. I don’t see that with Simmons, who fixes his eyes on the quarterback and his little idea of what’s going on behind him.

Whether it’s in the run game or against the pass, Simmons just doesn’t have the instincts you see in the best NFL linebackers. If you’re looking at him solely as a linebacker, it’s going to be hard to justify using an early first-round pick on him.

Pass rusher

Linebacker isn’t the only position Simmons played when lined up in the box. Clemson also gave him snaps at edge rusher, but as you’ll see in his pass-rush activity map, the 21-year-old didn’t make much of an impact when he was positioned on the line of scrimmage at the snap.

Simmons did most of his damage as a blitzer, and Venables did an excellent job of putting him in a position to use his athleticism against offensive linemen and his power against running backs.

Outside of a long arm move, there isn’t a lot of depth to Simmons’ pass-rush repertoire. Here’s a cut-up of pass rush snaps…

Simmons is not going to line up on the edge and beat a tackle with technique, but that doesn’t mean he can’t be a productive bitzer if used correctly.

Safety

We’ve already ruled out inside linebacker for Simmons, so the next logical option is safety. Clemson asked him to patrol the deep middle as a free safety on 132 snaps, per Pro Football Focus, and he made some plays from that spot. The most notable play — and the one you’ve probably seen on Twitter a billion times — was his interception in the Tigers’ win over Ohio State in the College Football Playoff.

It’s a great play, but the angle is a bit deceiving. He’s not pulling an Ed Reed here and jumping a route based on instincts. The all-22 angle shows us that it’s a called coverage rotation and Simmons just happens to be headed to the right place at the right time.

Most times, Simmons is just not comfortable in the deep middle, a position he’d inevitably have to play even if he mostly played as a box safety. The issue is the same one I pointed out in the linebacker section: Simmons doesn’t have a good feel for the route concepts an opposing offense is throwing at him. He has no idea what’s going on here and ends up running himself out of position…

On this play, he takes the bait the offense throws at him and lets a receiver get open deep. Thanks to his athleticism (and a poorly thrown ball), Simmons is able to get back into the play…

NFL quarterbacks aren’t going to be so forgiving.

It’s always cool to see a player line up in the A-gap, then drop to the deep middle after the snap and Simmons is a rare freak who can do that…

But it’s little more than a gimmick if he can’t actually make a play on the ball when doing so…

Simmons is a great athlete but he just doesn’t have the instincts you want in a safety. If we isolate Simmons snaps when he was lined up as a safety, you can see he didn’t make an impact when moving back downfield.

I can’t see how a pro defensive coordinator could be comfortable asking him to play that role. This — No. 11 in the deep middle of the field, wandering aimlessly backward — is not what an NFL safety looks like…

Slot defender

This is where most analysts expect Simmons to end up, which makes sense. It’s where he made the most plays. At the college level, where slot defenders are given cool position names like the star or the viper, it’s arguably the most important position on the defense. The NFL is going in that same direction but the skills required to play in that spot on Sundays are far different from what you’ll see on Saturdays.

At the college level, those players are typically linebacker-safety hybrids. Their ability to navigate blocks and make tackles in space is as important (and maybe more important) than their coverage ability.

Simmons has the ability to run with slot receivers downfield. That’s where the 4.39 speed comes in handy. So Clemson felt comfortable asking him to do so against wide receivers. But it’s not like he was getting in their faces and playing man-to-man. He was mostly playing off, keeping things in front of him and making tackles after the ball arrived.

When those receivers ran routes with more vertical stems and had a two-way go on Simmons, his first instinct was to use his hands. He got away with it in college, but NFL referees will throw a flag on plays like these more often than not.

If we isolate his man coverage reps in the activity chart, you can see that a lot of his successful coverage snaps came against routes where he didn’t have to cover a lot of ground underneath or routes with him just running straight down the field.

And here’s a cut-up of those snaps…

An NFL slot defender’s job is far different, and playing that position requires a skillet more common to the cornerback position. I don’t think Simmons has that in his game. Guys like Tyrann Mathieu, Jamal Adams and Derwin James have legit cornerback skills, which is why they can more than hold their own at that spot.

We can’t say that about Simmons. At the college level, offensive coaches are game-planning to figure out ways to exploit an opponent’s scheme. It changes when you get to the pros. NFL schemes are mostly homogenous, so game-planning is focused on finding ways to get this guy matched up with this weak link. Watch the 49ers play and it doesn’t take long to figure out who Kyle Shanahan’s target is that week.

If Simmons’ NFL team wants to put him in the slot, he’ll be that guy for offensive coordinators. They’ll find ways to get him isolated on a star receiver and hammer that matchup until the defense coordinator adjusts.

So what position should Simmons play?

It’s a difficult question to answer, mostly due to the fact that there isn’t an obvious one. Had Simmons come around at the turn of the century, he’d be pegged as an outside linebacker in a 3-4 defense, rushing the passer on some snaps and dropping into coverage on others. That position doesn’t really exist outside of a few defenses (such as the Patriots, Ravens and Lions all.)

To get the most out of Simmons in his current form, using him as Clemson did might be the best option. A couple issues:

1. There are only a handful of NFL defensive coordinators as creative as Brett Venables

2. Simmons’ issues with instincts are likely a direct result of not settling into one spot and really learning the intricacies of that position.

I know versatility is Simmons’ big selling point, but finding him a positional home is really the only way I can see him becoming a star at the next level. He reminds me of a high school recruit who’s listed as an “athlete.” He’s a ball of athletic clay that needs to be molded. That didn’t happen at Clemson, and it’s not a given that it will ever happen in the NFL.

As of now, he’s a good linebacker prospect, who was able to play as a deep safety or slot defender in college but may not be able to hold up in those spots against NFL athletes.

I’d play Simmons at linebacker and just live with his deficiencies as a run defender. He can put on weight in an effort to get better at taking on blocks — even if he has to sacrifice some speed. He has plenty to spare. With more reps at one position, he can start to develop the instincts that all great defenders possess.

Whatever happens, a coach can’t fall into the trap of forcing him into a “hybrid” role. Hybrids are cool. Great players are even better, and I don’t know if Simmons ever gets to the level without focusing on one job.