There’s a reason teams like the Washington Commanders never fully take their eye off the NFL’s free agent pool.
By now every team hopes the roster they’re going to win with is already in place, but every team – including the Commanders – knows it only takes one rep for all of that to change.
So while Washington appears pretty confident with its safety group led by second-year free safety Quan Martin and new addition Jeremy Chinn, there’s no reason the front office shouldn’t have tabs on what’s happening with free agent safety Justin Simmons.
“Still versatile and can play in the post with leadership and smarts.”Personnel Evaluator on Justin Simmons
“Still really good but not the blue-chip player he was,” an NFL personnel evaluator told Jeremy Fowler of ESPN while he was compiling his ranking of top-10 safeties in the league. “More of a high-level red at this stage. Still versatile and can play in the post with leadership and smarts.”
Simmons didn’t rank inside of the top-10 of the ESPN poll that asked league executives, coaches and scouts to rank the position group.
Instead, he was an honorable mention meaning he got enough votes to move the needle but not land inside the top 10 officially. That list ran seven deep, totalling 17 NFL safeties getting votes.
But there was another category. The ‘also receiving votes’ category. In there, eight more safeties were named, making 25 total getting at least a little love from league executives, coaches, and scouts.
None are on the Commanders roster currently. Only one is a free agent.
Some would look at that and say Washington needs to spring a trap to capture Simmons now as he’d be an obvious upgrade to the room, according to this survey.
But the Commanders seem confident, and the players seem primed to prove that excitement is rooted in reality not false hopes.
Still, if the unthinkable yet commonplace should happen, and Washington found its way into the category of needing a safety again, it could do a lot worse than a soon to be 31-year-old veteran from Manassas, Virginia who just this February was competing in the NFL’s Pro Bowl Games.
