{"id":25040,"date":"2025-05-05T06:36:12","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T06:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/25040\/"},"modified":"2025-05-05T06:36:12","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T06:36:12","slug":"arizona-state-cfp-hero-shamari-simmons-trying-out-with-seahawks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/25040\/","title":{"rendered":"Arizona State CFP Hero Shamari Simmons Trying Out With Seahawks"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the Seahawks<\/a> announced their updated roster for the start of this weekend\u2019s Rookie Minicamp, fans and reporters alike noticed one exciting name who\u2019d been invited to tryout that the team hadn\u2019t announced yet.<\/p>\n

Arizona State<\/a> DB Shamari Simmons<\/a> was the team\u2019s Defensive MVP in each of the last two seasons as he recorded 153 tackles, 11 tackles for loss, 2 interceptions, 12 passes defended, 4 forced fumbles and 2 fumble recoveries in 26 games per Pro Football Focus<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He underwhelmed at the Big 12 Pro Day, where his Speed, Agility and Quickness (40-yd dash, 3-cone and pro-agility) times<\/a> all ranked in the bottom 10% of DBs, which makes for a hard sell when combined with his smaller frame at 5\u201911\u201d, 197 lbs. forcing teams to invest draft picks in more prototypical athletic profiles.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, Simmons\u2019 has never won athleticism or obvious traits- he\u2019s had to grind to the top everywhere he\u2019s gone. He started his college career redshirting at Hutchinson CC before contributing as they went to the NJCAA-national championship the next year, then transferred to Austin Peay and became an All-Conference player at the FCS level in 2022. He transferred to ASU for 2023 and led Arizona State to shock the College Football world in 2024.<\/p>\n

After being picked to finish last in the Big XII in preseason and going just 2-2 to begin conference play, the Sun Devils won the conference and earned their first College Football Playoff berth, narrowly losing to Texas in a double-overtime thriller. Simmons was suspended for the first half but\u00a0made his biggest impact shortly after, forcing Longhorns<\/a> RB Quintrevion Wisner to fumble before tackling QB Quinn Ewers for a safety in the 3rd Quarter to spark an ASU comeback.<\/p>\n

Workhorse RB Cam Skattebo was the team\u2019s only player drafted as the New York Giants selected him in the 4th Round with the 105th Overall Pick. However, Simmons has the Mike Jackson-esque tenacity that has stuck around in Seattle\u2019s DB Room longer than expected before. He\u2019s elite in run support, showing viciousness on tape and an elite 91.7 RDEF grade on PFF<\/a>.<\/p>\n

His weakness is his spotty coverage skills. He has trouble anticipating and reacting in coverage while lacking the speed and length to recover. This limits him to a strict position playing close to the line of scrimmage as a nickel CB, but profiles well as a backup to speedster Devon Witherspoon while retaining his toughness or to hyper-athlete Nick Emmanwori to secure a level of stability without the high-end coverage upside. If he can make it through the non-padded rookie camp, he\u2019ll have a shot to show his best abilities once the pads come on in late July at training camp.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the Seahawks announced their updated roster for the start of this weekend\u2019s Rookie Minicamp, fans and reporters…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25041,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2081],"tags":[328,247,265,375,387,322,318,339,324,378,7,1057,49,1643,88,6,238,237,261,2635,1602,1982,9,266,376,377,51,1079,1980],"class_list":{"0":"post-25040","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-seattle-seahawks","8":"tag-328","9":"tag-american","10":"tag-american-football","11":"tag-arizona","12":"tag-arizona-state-sun-devils-football","13":"tag-big","14":"tag-college","15":"tag-college-sports","16":"tag-conference","17":"tag-devils","18":"tag-football","19":"tag-longhorns","20":"tag-ncaa","21":"tag-ncaa-big-12-conference","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-nfl","24":"tag-seahawks","25":"tag-seattle","26":"tag-seattle-seahawks","27":"tag-seattleseahawks","28":"tag-smg","29":"tag-smg-timely","30":"tag-sports","31":"tag-sports-news","32":"tag-state","33":"tag-sun","34":"tag-texas","35":"tag-texas-longhorns-football","36":"tag-timely"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114453845444393259","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}