Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
Broncos S Justin Simmons Lands at No. 17 on PFF's Top 101 Players From 2019
Justin Simmons is coming off a phenomenal 2019 season. As the Denver Broncos' starting free safety, he was all over the field, posting 93 combined tackles (65 solo) to go along with 15 passes defensed and a career-high four interceptions.
It earned him second-team All-Pro honors from the Associated Press, although he was snubbed from the Pro Bowl. Simmons' honors haven't stopped coming in, though, as the NFL's leading advanced analytics site, Pro Football Focus, recently ranked him at No. 17 on their Top 101 Players From 2019.
Here's what PFF said.
Justin Simmons was one of the best performers of the entire 2019 NFL season for the Denver Broncos' defense. He was particularly impactful in coverage, where he had four interceptions and 11 pass breakups, the most combined forced incompletions of any safety this season. Simmons was also unusually active against the run for a player who excelled in coverage, and he recorded 28 defensive stops, the 11th-best mark at the position despite spending just a third of his snaps as a box safety close to the line of scrimmage.
Simmons finished as PFF's highest-graded safety last year, which is saying something. Now, the talented young DB enters unrestricted free agency, though all signs point to the Broncos using whatever means necessary to keep him in Denver.
GM John Elway intimated a month ago that the franchise tag is an option for Simmons. Every player that the Broncos have franchise-tagged during the Elway front-office era has later in that same summer been extended on a multi-year deal.
That's one of the benefits to the franchise tag, which the Broncos leverage; it buys the team time to negotiate with the player's camp on a long-term deal without the immediate pressures of having to fend off outside interest from competing teams.
Simmons will be a Bronco in 2020 and beyond. He's staring down the barrel of a $12 million per year salary.
WR Courtland Sutton (69) and LB Alexander Johnson (46) were the only other Broncos to land on PFF's Top 101 list. It's the first time in recent memory Von Miller was omitted, which illustrates indeed that his 2019 campaign can safely be placed in the 'down year' bucket.
Here's to hoping it was an outlier for Miller, who's about to enter his age-31 season.
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