Reason 1: Isaiah shouldn’t have been the Cardinals’ 2020 1st round pick

Note: for those of you who have expressed your disapproval for ROTB articles involving former Cardinals or opinion-based threads, this long article (2 days to write) is not for you.

Cardinals mishandled Isaiah Simmons: 10 reasons why

In a recent SI article by Donnie Druin, Isaiah Simmons, who was signed to a 1-year deal by the Packers this off-season, expressed appreciation for his new DC, Jeff Hafley, for giving him one specific role to try to “get really good at one thing first,”

Isaiah added, “That’s something I really appreciate because I never really had that opportunity to really just hone in on one position. It’s hard enough to get into the NFL let alone stay, as well as be effective at a position, so just being able to lock in on one thing and do that 1/11 every day, I mean that’s been – I feel like – huge for me.”

As Donnie Druin aptly points out, “According to Pro Football Focus, Simmons logged snaps at the following positions in Arizona:

Edge defender, off-ball linebacker, strong safety, free safety, slot defender and boundary cornerback.”

Here is the full SI article:

Former First-Round Pick Takes Dig at Arizona Cardinals (si.com)

If this was indeed Isaiah taking a “dig” at the Cardinals, man, in my opinion, he let the Cardinals off easy.

10 ways in which the Cardinals mishandled Isaiah Simmons

• Reason 1: Isaiah should not have been the Cardinals’ 2020 1st round pick.

There were three players the Cardinals were heavily targeting at pick #8 in the 2020 NFL Draft:

1. DT Derrick Brown, Auburn
2. T Tristan Wirfs, Iowa
3. WR CeeDee Lamb, Oklahoma

Truth is, none of the most popular NFL pundits legitimately thought that Isaiah Simmons, with these stellar college credentials, would still be on the board at pick #8:

• CFP national champion (2018)
• Butkus Award (college) (2019)
• Unanimous All-American (2019)
• ACC Defensive Player of the Year (2019)

When the Panthers selected Derrick Brown at #7, one pick ahead of the Cardinals at #8, Steve Keim had a whole 10 minutes to consider scrapping his top targets to go with the Clemson defensive superstar instead.

But —- what Keim could not possibly do in 10 minutes is devise the best specific plan for a unicorn like Simmons —- AND —- have the team’s DC, Vance Jospeh, be fully committed to whatever that plan would be.

What Mel Kiper said that night about Isaiah Simmons turned out to be prophetic —- “the team that selects Isaiah Simmons has to have a specific plan for him.”

2. From day one, Steve Keim projected that Isaiah Simmons would play WILB.

We ROTB members KNEW from the get-go that WILB would not be the most suitable NFL position for Isaiah Simmons. If we KNEW it, why then didn’t Steve Keim, Vance Joseph or Billy Davis?

3. One of the worst scenarios for Isaiah Simmons was being drafted in a COVID year.

If you have studied Isaiah Simmons’ background, you would know that his success at Clemson was largely due to the daily individual attention that DC Brent Venerables paid to him in detailing (in classroom tutorials) and repping (on the field) all of Isaiah’s assignments for days on end before each game.

For Isaiah, as a new member of the Cardinals, having to adjust his game to a position that was not his primary position in college was critically hampered by remote, off the field zoom position group meetings.

4. In his very first game as a pro, Vance Joseph benched him.

Jospeh assigned IS to cover 49ers’ RB Raheem Mostert man-to-man with a FS blitz that vacated the deep middle.

Mostert faked an out route and pivoted into the middle on a circle route. Isaiah bit just a tad on the out route but then got beat over the middle. Without a free safety, Mostert sprinted at 4.38 speed to a 58-yard TD.

Comparatively, for example, Kyler Murray’s first half as a pro was so awful that Kliff Kingsbury wondered at halftime whether he would be fired —- yet, thank goodness, Kliff never benched him.

Some players can emotionally handle being yo-yoed in and out of the game better than others. Isaiah Simmons is not, and will never be, that type of player.

5. Two weeks after Isaiah played one of his best games ever in helping the Cardinals beat the Cowboys in Dallas, Vance Joseph benched him and Zaven Collins for the Cardinals’ playoff game versus the Rams.

Had the Cardinals not won this late-season game versus the playoff-bound Cowboys, they may not have made the playoffs themselves. Isaiah made one of the most impressive athletic plays of the season in a critical 4th quarter stop when he beat the tackle off the edge which caused Dak Prescott to have to step up into the pocket and then Isaiah pivoted on a dime straight down through the pocket to sack Dak from behind.

6. Vance Joseph’s coverage assignments for Isaiah when the DC moved him out of WILB to become the team’s slot CB were overwhelming and unreasonable.

First off, how many 6-4, 236-pound NFL players are employed as slot CBs? While Isaiah has sub 4.4 speed, at his size he is going to struggle covering smaller, shiftier WRs. Tight ends and taller WRs are much more made to order for Isaiah.

Can you ever forget the game the Cardinals lost to the Chargers at home in 2022 when Justin Herbert, down 7, marched the offense to a game winning TD and 2-point conversion? In that stretch, there was a sequence when Isaiah was asked to cover a quick slot WR, a Pro Bowl TE and a speedy RB on three consecutive plays. I had never seen anything like it. And with good reason, because think of the mental and physical adjustments that Isaiah Simmons had to make to cover each one, while also having to play the run.

7. Had Kliff Kingsbury been given the normal power and autonomy that an NFL head coach is normally afforded, Isaiah Simmons would very likely have been treated more favorably.

Head coaches have the wherewithal and autonomy to make sure that top draft picks are given the opportunity to play through learning curves, much the way Kliff did with Kyler Murray. Kliff Kingsbury was the coach that Isaiah Simmons bonded with more than any other. When rumors of Oklahoma’s interest in hiring Kliff to succeed Lincoln Riley emerged in December of 2021, Isaiah Simmons was one of the very first Cardinals’ player to text Kliff something to the effect of “please say it isn’t so, Coach.”

But Kliff was never in a position to tell Vance Joseph what to do or how to use his players. Kliff had issues with Vance Joseph early on to the point where he was asking Michael Bidwill and Steve Keim to hire a new DC. As was the case later on when Kliff asked Bidwill to fire OL coach Sean Kugler, Bidwill refused.

The irony is that one of the main reasons why Bidwill hired Steve Wilks as head coach was to do a much-needed job of motivating “players with different personalities.” To a commendable degree, Steve Wilks was successful motivating 1st round picks D.J. Humphries and Robert Nkemdiche.

If you know and understand Isaiah Simmons’ personality and learning style, there’s the reason why Isaiah gravitated to Kliff Kingsbury and not Vance Joseph.

8. Landing with the Cardinals and being tabbed as an ILB was one of the worst actualities for Isaiah Simmons.

All one has to do is look at the way Joseph and LB coach Billy Davis handled all of their ILBs, which included 1st round picks Haason Reddick, Isaiah Simmons and Zaven Collins. The only ILB that Joseph and Davis committed to was Jordan Hicks, whom Davis had coached during Hicks’ rookie year in Philadelphia.

But look at the unconventional way in which Joseph and Davis coached Hicks to basically let running backs come to him 5 yards beyond the line of scrimmage, rather than vice versa. And one of the major reasons why Joseph played so many zones was to cover for Hicks’ liability in man coverage, particularly in covering a RB out pass or, even worse, a RB wheel route.

Joseph and Davis also managed to turn off D’Vondre Campbell, who would leave for the Packers and deliver two All-Pro ILB seasons back-to back. And let’s not forget what Joseph and Davis got out of their next prized free agent ILB signing, Zach Vigil.

The PFF irony is that the two highest ILB grades that Vance Joseph got in his 4 seasons as DC were: 67.9 from Isaiah Simmons in 2022 and 66.5 from Zaven Collins in 2021 —- both of whom Joseph decided to bench in the Cardinals playoff game versus the Rams.

9. When Jonathan Gannon came in 2023, did he have a specific plan for Isaiah Simmons?

One would have thought that during the Eagles’ nail-biting 20-17 win over the Cardinals just a few months prior to Gannon being hired in Arizona, a strong argument can be made that by virtue of Isaiah’s 13 tackles, 2 QB hurries and giving up a mere 33 yards in pass coverage, he was the most outstanding defensive player of the game.

Yet, Gannon’s only reported plan for Isaiah from the get-go was to ask him what position he wanted to play. While the Cardinals had been lacking a good deep safety in pass coverage, moving Isaiah to free safety was absurd given that the Cardinals’ two best players were Budda Baker and Jalen Thompson.

A key context to this scenario was Gannon’s plan to move Zaven Collins to SOLB. Curious because in 2022 Isaiah Simmons had the highest pass rushing grade on the team at 83.5 and Collins was coming off a 100 tackles season at MIKE, with a team-leading 37 stops.

The obvious move was to play Isaiah Simmons at SOLB —- keep Zaven Collins at MIKE —- play Kyzir White at WILB coming off his best season as pro at that WILB position in Philadelphia —- and run a WOLB platoon with Dennis Gardeck and 2nd round pick B.J. Ojulari. Gannon’s tandem of ILBs Kyzir White and Josh Woods graded 58.9 and 31.8 respectively, with White landing on the IR and missing 7 games.

The question that has been a nagging at me perhaps more than any other —- how is it that Gannon enters the door embracing Kyler Murray and, as a defensive coach, isn’t at least equally embracing of Isaiah Simmons?

Isaiah Simmons had never divided the locker room. He was coming off the 2022 season as the Cardinals’ 4th highest graded defender (500+ snaps):

1. Budda Baker —- 73.7
2. Zach Allen —- 72.7
3. JJ Watt —- 68.3
4. Isaiah Simmons —- 67.9

By the middle of June, the Cardinals decided not to give Isaiah Simmons a 5th year option.

10. Trading Isaiah Simmons to the Giants for a 7th round pick was not only a shameful decision, it did very little to make the team better.

On the first play of the pre-season game versus the Chiefs, Isaiah Simmons, starting at free safety, laid the wood on a slant pass from QB Patrick Mahomes to WR Justin Watson—- BA BOOM! Yet, despite what looked to be a legitimate hit on Watson, Isaiah was flagged for unnecessary roughness.

We have seen Isaiah Simmons lay the wood on other opponents, like the time he stopped 49ers’ QB Trey Lance on the 1-inch line.

The fact that Isaiah was eager and willing to make a big statement-type hit like that in a mere pre-season game while playing with 2nd stringers versus the Chiefs’ starters speaks volumes to his football character.

That play was Isaiah’s first significant frustration of the night. If you have played free safety before, you know very well howe so many plays are designed to freeze the safety in what some would call “no man’s land.”

Isaiah got caught a few times in no man’s land and by the time he made such little effort to tackle a Chiefs ball carrier near the goal line, his head was spinning.

His lack of effort to make that tackle looked bad. No question.

But that incident was an anomaly. If anything, Isaiah Simmons is more apt to be too aggressive than passive, ask Cam Newton.

Some will argue that Monti Ossenfort and Jonathan Gannon took full advantage of the situation by making a clear statement to the team that they won’t tolerate anything but 100% effort at all times.

Yet, why then did they choose to hold on to CB Antonio Hamilton Sr. who make zero effort in 2022 to tackle a player in a real game? Hamilton was a liability as tackler for them as well in 2023. His missed tackle rate was 16.3, even worse than Marco Wilson’s 15%.

How about Sean Murphy-Bunting, MOJO’s prize UFA 3-year $25.5M CB? His tackling last season was absolutely pitiful. Tackling grade: 29.4. Missed tackle rate 22.5%. Look at this tackling effort in OT versus the Panthers with the game and playoffs on the line:

What the Cardinals could and should have done is try to coach Isaiah Simmons through that anomaly. For three reasons: (1) so that he can help the team in multiple ways (this just in —- it makes coaches look really good when they coach players through struggles); (2) so that with a couple of strong, bounce-back performances in the next 2 pre-season games, the Cardinals could have gotten way more than a 7th round pick, if they still wanted to trade him; (3) so that if and when he would leave as a free agent, they could possibly get a 2024 compensatory pick.

For Isaiah, being traded to the Giants was a mixed blessing. The less than ideal part was going to a team whose 2 inside linebackers, Bobby Okereke and Micah McFadden were already entrenched as starters. The most positive part was playing for DC Wink Martindale who held Isaiah in high regard and got strong play from him in sub packages. His 68.9 overall grade and 82.7 coverage grade playing for Wink were the highest of his then 4-year career. Wink wanted the Giants to re-sign Isaiah.

Last year without Wink and playing for his 5th DC in 4 years, Isaiah had his poorest season, playing a mere 181 snaps.

Conclusion:

Vance Joseph’s track record with ILBs in Arizona is proof that Isaiah Simmons was drafted by the wrong team. Steve Keim’s insistence that Isaiah Simmons would be a fit at WILB was a big mistake right from the get-go.

It would be very understandable if Isaiah Simmons was traumatized by his experience in Arizona. It would be very understandable if he felt misunderstood. Mel Kiper was correct. Isaiah Simmons, in order to hit the NFL running, was going to have land with the right team and the right coach.

Imagine, for example, if Isaiah had landed with the Ravens and into the hands of Wink Martindale from the get-go.

Look at what Wink Martindale had to say about Isaiah while he was coaching him in 2023:

His new DC, Jeff Hafley, was the head coach at Boston College during Isaiah Simmons’ stellar seasons at Clemson. Coach Haf knows Brent Venerables very well and will know how to prepare Isaiah so that he won’t have to think too much and will play super aggressive. Coach Haf already has a specific role for Isaiah at OLB, one that will focus him and not overwhelm him.