Isaiah Simmons’ Botched Development

Vance Joseph is failing to properly develop his young linebacker, Isaiah Simmons

Yesterday was a game for the ages, the likes of the 2020 Cardinals match up against the then NFC West-leading team, the Seattle Seahawks.  It was almost a 1-to-1 comparison. The Cardinals defense was looking horrendous in the 1st half, clamping down in the 2nd, Kyler throwing a boneheaded interception, but marching the offense and making key plays (great against the Raiders) tying it up with no time left to go to OT.

An Isaiah Simmons (on a snap count) coming up with the play to put the Cardinals in a position to win.  This is a game of the year contender just like the Seattle game 2 years ago.  Kyler Murray showed he makes the play when it counts whether it’s threading the needle on an insane throw or just taking it himself.  I wish that was it about this game but of course, there’s the egregious usage of our 1st round LB.

I’ve written many articles about Simmons and I hope I won’t have to for the rest of the year.  The roller coaster that has been his career has been anything but stable and I don’t feel like the ups and downs are gonna end any time soon.

Now I have to give context to why Isaiah’s roller coaster is egregious, starting with his rookie year.

Everyone remembers that play, especially his critics. Isaiah played every snap up to that play, man coverage on a Texas route, Simmons over commits (something he still does) and is punished for it and effectively sends him to the bench.  What’s interesting is the Cardinals were in a 4-3 defense in order to allow the Linebackers to play together.  His rookie year was summed up by 2 plays.

Here’s the next. You know where I’m going with this.

That came in the game I talked about in the first paragraph, that was the game-changing play. Now, most people would say Isaiah had a tale of two halves where Isaiah had a horrible start and a better finish. If you haven’t seen The Cardinals Rule video on Isaiah Simmons’ review and projection, you should give it a watch. He illustrates that there’s more to it than a tale of 2 halves.

Joseph does a great job breaking down his rookie season and gives clarity to the full picture. Make sure if you haven’t watched his video, give it a watch, like, and subscribe.

Isaiah Simmons is misused

In 2020, he only played 33% of the snaps with 193 in the box, 71 in the slot, and 89 at edge.  He had his best game against the Seahawks seemingly twice but in the second game he really shined.  With DeVondre nursing a minor injury Isaiah showed out.

How’s this for performance? He had a 72.0 grade playing 45 snaps, a sack, 9 tackles, 5 stops, 5 targets with 3 catches for 28 yards (Tyler Lockett is the Seahawks’ slot). He was crucial stopping Tyler Lockett on a slant from picking up a first down and tackling Russ in the open field for a 2-yard gain.

After that game, the ups and downs continued.  The following game was against the Patriots and of course, another memorable play happened.

Unfortunately, this play gave the yardage to the Patriots enough to kick the field goal for the win in a must-win game that pretty much sealed the season at the end, when the Cardinals lost back-to-back games against the 49ers and the John Worford-led Rams.

I’ve wanted to do a deep dive on this play and I’ll do it now in broadcast view cause the NFL really hates YouTubers and film analysts.  So it’s 3rd and 13 the Cardinals look to be in man coverage (honestly I can’t tell with the broadcast view) but with the LB’s close to the line of scrimmage its showing blitz. Vance Joseph does a Vance Joseph thing and calls an inverted safety blitz with the two safeties (Budda and Banjo).

Why Vance didn’t emphasize stopping the Patriots from getting the first down knowing Cam had an ineffective game in the air with 2 Ints is beyond me.  But after the play, you notice Haason getting penetration and Budda off the edge picking each other off essentially giving a past-his-prime Cam a wide-open lane where the closest defender is Simmons,  who dropped into a deep zone,  sprinting his butt off to stop a first down conversion.  Adding insult to injury he gets a penalty giving the Patriots the win.

Two things: why was Isaiah the safety net in a play where the Cardinals had to stop the Patriots on a 3rd and 13? Why blitz, they make the stop, and give it back to their offense. At the very least you go into OT.  The hit was controversial itself but it shouldn’t have come to that.  Also, why was Dre blocked into oblivion by former Cardinal 5-foot-10 Damiere Byrd?

In this game, Isaiah had his second sack in 2 games, but it’s important to note he only played 16 snaps again.  He was flagged on another hit but that was also controversial. Regardless, back to the bench he went only getting significant playing time against the Eagles where he was mic’d up.  Just for reference, I would like to add that DeVondre was the reason why Isaiah rode the bench, he’s an All-Pro with the Packers but he wasn’t all that good with the Cardinals.  He had a 49 grade overall with 2 sacks and no interceptions and was part of the LB tandem that graded badly against the run allowing the most rec yards to RBs in coverage.  Essentially giving them a first down. And as for that play Simmons was burned on, DeVondre too fell victim to it for a TD.

That’s DeVondre giving up a TD on the same route late in the season in a must-win game where Jeff torched the Cardinals’ defense for 200 yards plus from scrimmage.

One more play to close out his rookie season, when we needed everything to keep our playoff hopes alive, at the 2 yard line, DeVondre makes the stop and Simmons comes up with a heads-up play that looks familiar to us right now.

Isaiah in limited snaps showed he has the ability to make a game-altering play.

He started his sophomore year with a bang in back-to-back games with 9 tackles, 2 good stops on Derrick Henry, including one at the 1-yard line, a downhill tackle and stealing an interception from Budda.

Next game against Minnesota he had 8 tackles and a crazy 90.2 coverage grade moving between the box, the slot, and edge.  Meanwhile, Jordan Hicks had a horrendous start to the season posting a 52.0 grade against Titans and 29.1 against the Vikings with 6 tackles against the Titans and 4 against the Vikings.  Dominating the snap count over Zaven essentially repeating the process again with another rookie when a veteran is underperforming they are awarded patience.

I think after Sunday’s game, people are not only confident in Zaven but getting the green dot showed he could’ve been further in his progression.  Here was the stat line for Isaiah in Year 2:

• 102 tackles (104 depending where you look), 1.5 sacks, 1 int, and 4 forced fumbles, 3 of which were recovered. One being this play in the clutch against the Cowboys.

To put into context how important that play was, the Cardinals dominated the Cowboys’ offense leading 22-7 till the 4th quarter.  An impressive performance up to then, the Cowboys were mounting a comeback scoring at the beginning of the 4th quarter.  Next drive the Cardinals stall and punt.  The first cowboys possession was a 26 yards completion to CeeDee Lamb.  Two plays later, Isaiah makes the play helping the offense get in position to kick a field goal going up 25-14.

On the ensuing drive by the Cowboys, their offense moves down the field converting a 4th down and scoring a TD with a successful 2-point conversion to make the score 25-22.  The offense eats up the clock and a bad call on a time-out by Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy, a lucky break with a Chase Edmonds fumble, the game ends with the x Cardinals on top.

The Cardinals won the game to put them at 11-5 for the season before losing to the Seahawks going 11-6.  Till the Raiders win, that was the last game they won, and it took an Isaiah Simmons play to aid that just like the Raiders game.

The 2022 season has been egregious with Simmons being bestowed as the Star backer with the green dot.  Playing 29 snaps at Slot in a Zone blitz-heavy game, he had an enormous amount of pressure to relay calls while making sure he was on point l. His performance garnered so much negative attention not being helped by the replays by the CBS broadcast.

To be fair, if Simmons plays better those plays aren’t replayed but it was very clear that they were keying in on Simmons in particular giving every critic the fuel, and showing the national media he is a bust of a player.

Simmons gave up 3 catches and a TD.  All 3 of those were replayed.  He should’ve caught the INT but to be fair it was called back anyways, still should be caught.  The run play is interesting because Simmons was hitting a gap and the Linemen disengaged to the same gap.  Linebackers are taught to read clear or cloudy while Running backs on the other hand are taught to press gaps as far as they can in order for LB’s and DL’s to sink into it in order to hit another hole.  If the Linemen was taught to 2 gap then Isaiah wouldn’t have needed to step into that gap, but the miscommunication on both ends ended up having 2 players taking 1 gap and a savvy veteran McKinnon make a jump cut for a big gain.

This proved the green dot is too much and that’s ok. I’d rather him not have it if it’s gonna overload his thinking and that’s what was my assessment of him.

He had 29 snaps in the slot, and that’s not what a Star backer is, a slot corner.  He’s supposed to be a Dimebackers, underneath robber, rat defender, QB spy, Blitzer up the middle, and problem solver.  Yet I feel like he’s gonna be none of these this year.

Vance needs to figure it out and benching him does nothing for his development.  It’s clear he’s not happy with Isaiah with the comment he made in his press conference.  Maybe keeping him in a snap count signaled that he’s punishing him.  At the end of this book I wrote that I plan on leaving this subject alone, hopefully for a while, but at the end of the day thank God he wasn’t on the bench for this play.