The Arizona Cardinals had seen enough of Isaiah Simmons, and that became evident when they traded the former eighth overall pick for a seventh round pick, adding to their already full pile of 2024 selections. And wow, what a fall from grace for Simmons, who was supposed to become a star player on the Cardinals defense.
Earlier today, you may recall that I wrote a piece talking about three Cardinals players who need to be traded. Simmons was among those listed in that piece, and I projected he would likely go for “a pair of mid rounders.”
Clearly, that wasn’t the case, as Simmons was instead given away for a measly seventh round pick. This without a doubt, came as a shocker to the Red Sea. So why did the Cards trade him for such a cheap price? There are three potential explanations.
Why did the Arizona Cardinals only net a seventh rounder for Simmons?
1 - A seventh was all they could get
The likeliest of the three potential scenarios, but Isaiah Simmons had no real position, nor did he excel in any of them. In fact, if you look at his overall numbers, he was, at best, mediocre.
Sure, Simmons had his moments, like the pick six from last season or the forced fumble that led to a Cardinals win. But the bad outweighed the good - Simmons was never a game changer, and his coverage skills were beyond abysmal.
This indicates that perhaps they couldn’t get anything more than a seventh rounder, so instead of cutting him and getting nothing, they could acquire and use that pick to perhaps unearth a hidden gem in 2024. Overall, it’s not the trade anyone wanted for Simmons, but it beats cutting him loose if that was indeed the plan.
2 - They just wanted to get rid of him and cut their losses
This one ties into the first explanation - following a poor performance in the preseason, the Arizona Cardinals just wanted to get him out the door. If that’s the case, you may be asking why, if a team like the New York Giants wanted him so badly, wouldn’t they just wait until he was on waivers? Again, this is assuming the Cards were planning to release him next week.
By trading a seventh round pick for Simmons, it shows that a team like the Giants didn’t want to risk him going through waivers. Clearly, a former eighth overall pick would be picked up rather quickly, perhaps by a bottom-tier team had he been released.
To minimize this risk, New York could have offered a seventh rounder, and the Cards may not have gotten any other offers for Simmons, so Ossenfort went ahead and made the trade.
3 - Tanking after all?
This is the least-likeliest scenario, but you can’t necessarily call Isaiah Simmons a bust. Sure, he underachieved for an eighth overall pick, but Simmons produced well enough for one to think he would at least be worth the mid rounder I mentioned in a previous article.
But to give up a seventh could mean that general manager Monti Ossenfort doesn’t care about winning this season, and he just wanted to take any offer given to him regardless of what it was. I can’t stress enough that this is a highly unlikely scenario, but when you pair this with the fact the ineffective Colt McCoy could be the Cardinals starter on September 10th, it makes you stop and think.
You might claim that the Cards would be tanking better by keeping Simmons thanks to the way he looked in preseason. While that could wind up as true, it’s still important to remember Simmons was no bust, and he played major roles in two of the Cardinals four wins last season.
Regardless, we can only speculate as to why Simmons went to New York for a seventh round pick. We probably won’t get behind-the-scenes access like we did with the draft day trade that landed Paris Johnson. But we can assume that one of the three above scenarios likely contributed to the trade.