Denver Broncos safety Justin Simmons had his Madden 21 ratings come out and some may feel some disrespect from EA.
Madden revealed the top-10 safeties in their latest version of the video game, Madden 21. That includes Denver Broncos safety Justin Simmons.
But just where is Simmons in the top 10? Madden has rated him as the sixth-best safety and the third-best free safety. The two free safeties with a better overall rating are Patriots’ Devin McCourty and Titans’ Kevin Byard.
Simmons was given a speed rating of 88 overall. In comparison to the five other free safeties announced, three have a speed rating of 90, while the others all have a rating of 88.
Simmons still plays with a lot of awareness, however, and is rated at 92 in the category. That is good to tie for second among free safeties, to just McCourty.
One of the things that I do not quite understand is that McCourty’s catch rating is 81 while Simmons’ is 75. McCourty had just one more interception than Simmons in 2019. This rating is surprising to me.
When it comes to tackling, Simmons was given a rating of 75, which ranks third among free safeties. He is behind Byard (79) and Ravens safety Earl Thomas (77). It’s also something that doesn’t quite add up, as Thomas had 49 tackles in 2019, while Simmons had 93.
How does that make sense?
Something that Simmons ranks No. 1 in among all safeties is his jump rating. He was given 96 overall in jumping ability. That’s awesome. Simmons has shown that he has tremendous ability to make a play on the football when it is in the air, and part of that has to do with being able to jump really high to catch the football.
A+, Madden. A+.
Simmons has not missed a defensive snap in the last two seasons, playing all 2,133 snaps. I, among others (probably), like to call him Iron Man. For this great fact in his play, Simmons was given a stamina rating of 98. It is kind of odd that his injury rating is just 91.
Pursuit
”Pursuit (PUR) – Ability to catch up to the ball carrier, when unblocked or when his block is shed.”
Simmons has shown that he is somebody quarterbacks want to generally avoid. But as his pursuit rating of 89 (third among safeties) shows, that’s not going to happen. Simmons can find the ball very fast and make a play happen.
Final thoughts
Overall, I feel as if Simmons should be among the top three safeties in Madden 21. He absolutely deserved to go to the Pro Bowl following the 2019 season, but he was snubbed.
While some of these ratings are very solid, compared to some other safeties, it is kind of odd. But I guess it just goes to show that there are some very talented players at the position across the NFL.
Let’s just be glad that Madden did not snub Simmons and place him below an overall rating of 90.