Justin Simmons might be coming to the NFC South after all. The thing is, he might not be doing it with the New Orleans Saints. NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reports that Simmons left his meeting with the Saints in Southern California last week and traveled to visit the Atlanta Falcons, their bitterest rivals.
The Falcons have the least salary cap space in the NFL (a little more than $3.5 million, per Over The Cap’s estimate), so this might be more about the fit than the money. For reference, the Saints have more than $10 million to spend after extending Pete Werner’s contract last week.
If Simmons wasn’t impressed by the playing time the Saints offered him he could be in line for more opportunities in Atlanta, but it’s tough to believe the Saints would go through all this trouble to wine and dine him and then start Johnathan Abram or Jordan Howden instead.
So we’ll see how this develops. Simmons remains the best free agent still on the board and he’d be a nice upgrade for New Orleans, giving them one of the better ball-hawking duos around the league with Tyrann Mathieu. But if he does go to Atlanta, it’s worth noting that Simmons intercepted Derek Carr just once in a dozen rivalry games between his Denver Broncos and Carr’s Raiders — and it happened on a tipped pass.
