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Jordan Raanan, ESPN Staff Writer
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Two days before their preseason finale, the New York Giants made a low-risk, high-reward trade.
The Giants acquired Isaiah Simmons from the Arizona Cardinals on Thursday in exchange for a seventh-round pick in 2024.
Simmons, 25, has talent. He was drafted eighth overall by the Cardinals in 2020, but he lacks a true position.
Simmons played 25 snaps for Arizona in his second preseason game last week at safety. He made a switch to defensive back this offseason after playing throughout the Cardinals’ defense in his first three seasons under former coach Kliff Kingsbury and former defensive coordinator Vance Joseph.
The Giants will start the 6-foot-4, 238-pound Simmons as a linebacker. It’s not necessarily to come in and immediately take the starting inside linebacker spot alongside Bobby Okereke (second-year LB Micah McFadden had a strong camp and is currently in that role), but to be the kind of hybrid linebacker/safety/rusher/blitzer who could thrive in defensive coordinator Wink Martindale’s system.
“Really talented athlete, average football player,” one NFC executive told ESPN of Simmons. “Perfect project for Wink. If anyone can put him in position to succeed, he can.”
Martindale reiterated Wednesday that he runs what in a way is a “positionless defense.” Martindale’s job will be to make the performance finally match the potential. Simmons had 105 tackles in 2021 and 95 last season. He had seven passes defended each of the past two years as well.
He’s a versatile, multi-talented positionless player. His position breakdown during his three seasons with the Cardinals: 40% at outside linebacker, 23.3% at inside linebacker and 26.6% at cornerback (mostly in the slot).
“That is one of the reasons why we made the trade. We thought there was upside there,” Giants coach Brian Daboll said. “Again, we’ll put him in. We’ll ask him to do quite a bit of things just to see what he takes to. A guy that is athletic, explosive, has good size. Seen him do some multiple things.
“Until we get him here, I’ll give you a better answer [of how we use him]. But certainly happy to have him.”
The most likely role for Simmons will be to be used as a sub-package linebacker all over the field, similar to how the Giants used veteran safety Tony Jefferson last season. Simmons, however, is young and significantly more explosive at this point of his career.
The challenge for the Giants will be getting Simmons to embrace that position.
“I told them I didn’t want to play linebacker,” Simmons told the Cardinals’ website earlier this summer. “I felt more comfortable getting back to things I had done in the past.”
That meant safety, where he excelled at Clemson. But it didn’t work out for Simmons this summer in Arizona under its new regime.
Now in New York it seems he’s again going to be a linebacker.
The fact that it only cost a seventh-rounder speaks volumes to what the league thinks of Simmons at this point. It didn’t help his value that he’s also in the final year of his rookie contract. The Cardinals declined his fifth-year option earlier this year.
It doesn’t matter much to the Giants at this point. They just want to see what they can get out of what they clearly believe is some untapped talent and see if they can use that athleticism in Martindale’s blitz-heavy scheme.
Simmons does have 7.5 career sacks, four interceptions and seven forced fumbles.
“I’d say it’s obviously pretty early but [general manager] Joe [Schoen] has done a good job with his staff just evaluating and keeping open conversations just about a number of players, him being one of them,” Daboll said. “Explosive. High pick. … We’ll put him in our system and start teaching him our stuff.”
Maybe this time it will click.