Packer Central

Former Eighth Pick of NFL Draft Visiting Packers

Isaiah Simmons is visiting the Packers on Monday. With an incredible combination of size and athleticism, Simmons has played here, there and everywhere in his five-year career.
Bill Huber|
Green Bay Packers running back Aaron Jones (33) carries Arizona Cardinals linebacker Isaiah Simmons (9) into the end zone.
Green Bay Packers running back Aaron Jones (33) carries Arizona Cardinals linebacker Isaiah Simmons (9) into the end zone. | Joe Camporeale-Imagn Images

In this story:

Green Bay Packers

GREEN BAY, Wis. – Linebacker Isaiah Simmons, who was the eighth pick of the 2020 NFL Draft by the Arizona Cardinals, is visiting the Green Bay Packers on Monday, according to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport.

Simmons spent the last two seasons with the New York Giants. Last season, he started one game and was the NFC’s Special Teams Player of the Week after a game-clinching blocked field goal.

Simmons is a phenomenal talent. At the 2020 Scouting Combine, he measured 6-foot-3 5/8 and 239 pounds. He ran his 40 in 4.39 seconds and had a 39-inch vertical jump.

With superb physical tools, he’d be an intriguing addition to Green Bay’s limited depth chart.

The Packers have only five linebackers on the roster, with Quay Walker, Edgerrin Cooper, Isaiah McDuffie, Ty’Ron Hopper and the return of Kristian Welch. The Packers might take only five into the regular season but they’d need at least eight to get through the offseason and training camp.

Simmons will turn 27 right around the start of training camp

Combining his size-speed skill-set, which included a 9.97 Relative Athletic Score, and elite college production – he won the Butkus Award as the nation’s top linebacker at Clemson in 2019 – he was an early first-round pick.

Simmons started seven games as a rookie in 2020 to earn All-Rookie honors, all 17 games in 2021, when he had 105 tackles and four forced fumbles, and 13  games in 2022, when he had 99 tackles and two interceptions.

The production was great but the consistency was not. After the 2023 draft and with a new regime leading the organization, the Cardinals declined his fifth-year option. Late in training camp, they traded him to the Giants for a mere seventh-round pick.

With New York, where he played out his rookie contract in 2023 and re-signed in 2024, he played in all 34 games but started only five games – four times in 2023 and once in 2024.

Simmons is a linebacker in name only. With his size and athleticism, he was deployed here, there and everywhere.

“In our minds, he would be a first-, second-down nickel and then playing money [dime linebacker] on third down,” Giants defensive coordinator Shane Bowen said on the HBO documentary Hard Knocks.

Among his 181 defensive snaps for the Giants last season, PFF listed him as a slot corner for 86 and a box defender for 73. In 2022 with the Cardinals, his 897 snaps included 409 in the slot, 297 in the box, 110 on the defensive line, 53 at free safety and 28 as a cornerback.

Said Giants cornerback Dru Phillips: “In the spring, I was looking at him and thinking, ‘How is he going to do this?’ He’s just so big but you see him out there covering guys like (receiver) Wan’Dale Robinson and what not. It’s surprising, but he’s a freak of nature and he’s blessed for the talents that he’s got.”

In five seasons, Simmons has played in 84 of a possible 85 games with 42 starts. His 329 tackles include 15 tackles for losees and 8.5 sacks. He’s added five interceptions, nine forced fumbles and 21 passes defensed.

Simmons went from unheralded recruit – Clemson coach Dabo Swinney had never heard of him until shortly before National Signing Day – to superstar.

As a safety in 2017, Simmons led the Tigers in snaps per tackle. He moved to a nickel/linebacker hybrid position in 2018 before moving full-time to linebacker in 2019. The payoff? He won the Butkus Award as the nation’s top linebacker. Simmons was Clemson’s first Butkus winner and sixth unanimous All-American. He became the first player since Khalil Mack in 2013 to have 100-plus tackles, 16-plus tackles for losses, eight-plus sacks and multiple interceptions in a season. 

“I would do everything in college,” he said. “Just kind of like a Swiss Army knife, move me around because then I’m able to show what I can really do. I wouldn’t say I’m really tied down to one position. (Defensive coordinator Brent) Venables really used me in a really special way that most people aren’t able to be used.”

In the NFL, Simmons has played two games against the Packers, once with the Cardinals in 2021 and once with the Giants in 2023. He had six tackles and one pass defensed in the game with Arizona but didn’t play much against New York in London.

After the trade, Cardinals receiver DeAndre Hopkins said the Giants got a “steal” in Simmons. That’s what Giants coach Brian Daboll was hoping would be the case.

“He could do a lot of different things. Explosive, athletic. That's why he was picked where he was picked,” he said after the trade.

“We thought there's some upside there. A guy that's, again, athletic, explosive, has good size. I've seen him do some multiple things.”

The “upside” part is what makes Simmons such an intriguing addition in what presumably would be a no-risk signing.

More Green Bay Packers News

Published | Modified
Bill Huber
BILL HUBER

Bill Huber, who has covered the Green Bay Packers since 2008, is the publisher of Packers On SI, a Sports Illustrated channel. E-mail: packwriter2002@yahoo.com History: Huber took over Packer Central in August 2019. Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillHuberNFL Background: Huber graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he played on the football team, in 1995. He worked in newspapers in Reedsburg, Wisconsin Dells and Shawano before working at The Green Bay News-Chronicle and Green Bay Press-Gazette from 1998 through 2008. With The News-Chronicle, he won several awards for his commentaries and page design. In 2008, he took over as editor of Packer Report Magazine, which was founded by Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke, and PackerReport.com. In 2019, he took over the new Sports Illustrated site Packer Central, which he has grown into one of the largest sites in the Sports Illustrated Media Group.