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Why potential Detroit Lions pick Isaiah Simmons is best athlete in NFL draft

Clemson linebacker Isaiah Simmons speaks to the media at the NFL combine on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2020, in Indianapolis. Detroit Free Press

This is a story about Isaiah Simmons. Not the football player who’s ticketed to be an early first-round pick in Thursday’s NFL draft, but the one who, for a brief moment in the winter of 2017, looked like he might be an Olympic long jumper.

Simmons, one of the three players most likely to be drafted by the Detroit Lions with the third overall pick, walked on to the Clemson track team on a whim after redshirting his freshman year.