Cardinals sign fourth-round linebacker Cody Simon
The Cardinals signed fourth-round pick Cody Simon on Monday, the team announced.
Arizona made the Ohio State linebacker the 115th overall pick.
The Cardinals have signed five of their seven selections, with only first-round pick Walter Nolen III and second-round pick Will Johnson unsigned.
Simon will compete for the starting job alongside Mack Wilson Sr. at inside linebacker. Free agent signees Akeem Davis-Gaither and Mykel Walker and holdover Owen Pappoe are other candidates for the job.
Simon earned defensive MVP honors at the CFP National Championship and the Rose Bowl last season. He had 112 tackles, 13 tackles for loss, seven sacks and seven passes defensed in 2024.
During his five seasons at Ohio State, Simon played 58 games with 30 starts and had 259 tackles, 23 tackles for loss, 10 sacks, 11 passes defensed, two forced fumbles, one fumble recovery and one interception. He was a four-time OSU Scholar-Athlete and four-time Academic All-Big Ten selection.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
USA Today
an hour ago
- USA Today
The reason Ohio State chose women's volleyball as one of four sports for revenue sharing
The new House Settlement is going to be a game changer in how college athletics is managed and consumed. Name, Image and Likeness will still be a thing, but now that universities can pay athletes directly, there are some decisions to be made. What sports make up the bulk of the direct payments (roughly $20.5 Million) by each university, how do they allocate those funds, and can all of the current sports survive? Those are the same questions Ohio State Athletic Director Ross Bjork has had to wrestle with as well, and he met with the media last week to discuss the strawman plan that OSU will be operating under the new parameters. Of course, the bulk of the money left over after all of the scholarships are funded will go to football, and to no one's surprise either, some of that money will go to men's and women's basketball -- two other revenue generating sports -- but there's one other sport Ohio State decided to fund through direct payments, and that one is a little bit of a surprise to some when the roughly $18 Million allocated after funding scholarships is available to distribute. To be equitable, you had a feeling (and rightfully so) that another women's sport would be in the mix, but no, it's not softball, an extremely fast-growing sport that other colleges are sure to pour money into, but rather, women's volleyball. That might be a head scratcher for many, but according to Bjork, there is reasoning behind including women's volleyball into the model. 'We think, with the attention that our program can receive, we think the Columbus market, volleyball is a booming sport,' Bjork said. 'The Covelli Center is an amazing atmosphere, so we thought volleyball could be a sport that could drive more revenue, but also the attention that it gets within the Big Ten.' It's true that volleyball is huge in the Big Ten. Teams like Penn State and Nebraska have a rabid following, and it's clear the brass at Ohio State believe the same can be true in Columbus. Head coach Jen Flynn Oldenburg is excited to have the women's volleyball team included, saying it'll allow her staff to attract some of the better talent available to come to the banks of the Olentangy and be a part of building and maintaining something. 'To be one of four sets the tone for the conference and our program,' Oldenburg said in a press conference. 'Volleyball is big in the Big Ten, and in order to compete, you have to keep up with the big dogs. By saying we're one of the four at Ohio State to get revenue share, we're going to compete with the big dogs.' As we all know, and have seen across college athletics, though, money to bring in talent can only get you so far. You have to be able to identify the right talent, take it and build a culture, develop it into better players, and get the collection of bodies to work together to achieve a goal as a cohesive team. It'll be interesting to see where the Ohio State women's volleyball team goes from here. It's a good thing to be included in the revenue sharing, but it does put a lot of pressure on the program and staff to produce results. The clock is now ticking and eyes are watching. Contact/Follow us @BuckeyesWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Ohio State news, notes and opinion. Follow Phil Harrison on X.
New York Times
2 hours ago
- New York Times
Dodger Details: Shohei Ohtani's 2-way show, Freddie Freeman's struggles and more
LOS ANGELES — Baseball's most novel between-innings entertainment starts as soon as Shohei Ohtani throws his final pitch in the top of the first inning. The ensuing 130 seconds are the equivalent of a NASCAR pit crew removing the equipment that makes Ohtani, the pitcher, and applying all necessary for Ohtani, the batter, to step up to the plate as the reigning National League MVP. Advertisement Ohtani's 18th and final pitch Sunday afternoon was a cutter that Washington Nationals first baseman Nathaniel Lowe flailed at, starting the chain with little time for Ohtani to celebrate a scoreless second outing off of elbow surgery or his first two strikeouts in a Los Angeles Dodgers uniform. He hustled to a foreign substance check with home-plate umpire Carlos Torres before walking toward the front of the Dodgers dugout, where a buffet of equipment options awaited him all ready to go. He quickly stuffed his sliding pad into his back right pocket and rolled up his right pants leg to strap on a shin guard. Next came his white elbow guard that he slid onto his twice-repaired right arm. A brief interruption came when he reached for his batting gloves, accidentally dropping them onto the ground and adding a couple of seconds to his tally. He slid his helmet onto his head and did not have time to spray his usual adhesive onto his bat. A minute and 40 seconds had elapsed before Ohtani took his first practice swing. Total time elapsed before stepping in against Nationals starter Michael Soroka: 2 minutes, 10 seconds. When Ohtani finally returned to the dugout after chasing an elevated fastball for a strikeout, it had been 11 minutes between his first pitch and his first time taking a seat to catch his breath in the Dodgers' 13-7 win. 'I marvel at it,' Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. That doesn't mean it will always be this way. Roberts broached the idea of moving Ohtani down in the order on his start days when speaking with the superstar ahead of his first start Monday. Ohtani assured he was fine with leading off, even with the quick turnaround. Still, the door is open to hitting Ohtani second, third or even fourth to assure Ohtani more of a break between the mound and the plate — especially during home games. Shohei records his first strikeout as a Dodger! — Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) June 22, 2025 This is all new for the Dodgers and something Ohtani hasn't had to do since 2023. Ohtani was 4-for-23 with 11 strikeouts since returning to the mound in big-league games entering Sunday. Just a seven-game sample that largely would go ignored if it didn't coincide with Ohtani returning to pitching. 'I've been able to come back to game action earlier than expected. In that sense, I do feel like I do have to work on some things,' Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton. 'But at the same time, I do feel like I can perform better, even better than I used to be able to perform at.' Advertisement Roberts said he hadn't noticed any fatigue with Ohtani, who had expanded the strike zone quite often with his swings this week. The manager noted that Ohtani's bat speed and other internal metrics are 'in line' with his norms. (For what it's worth, his average swing speed had gone from 76.2 mph to 75.4 mph entering Sunday, still a small sample of just 38 swings.) He ran a bat speed of 79.6 mph in the seventh inning, hooking a hard-hit grounder fair for a bases-clearing triple down the line to break the game open. Then, 76.2 mph in the eighth when he lofted his first home run during a game when he pitched since Aug. 23, 2023 — the game when he re-tore his ulnar collateral ligament. Ohtani's bat speed seems fine. So did his pitching. He touched 98.8 mph with his fastball and showed much better command in the zone, something Ohtani said was because he cleaned up his delivery with pitching coaches Mark Prior and Connor McGuiness. While the Dodgers have floated the idea of building Ohtani's workload on each successive outing, the plan was always for him to go just one inning Sunday. 'It's going to be a gradual process,' Ohtani said. It's something to keep in mind as the Dodgers deliberately stretch him out. Everything appears fluid, including just how built up the Dodgers would like Ohtani to be pitching-wise. 'I think we're always gonna be cautious,' Roberts said. 'So I don't even know what that's going to look like, to be 'fully built-up.' I don't think anyone knows what that looks like. Because it's not a normal starting pitcher. So to say six (innings) and 90 (pitches), I don't even know if we'll get to that point.' Between rounds of treatment on his surgically repaired right ankle that has become routine, Freddie Freeman vented. His swing has not been right. The Dodgers' three former MVPs atop the lineup — Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freeman — have slumped. It coincided with baseball's best lineup looking quite mortal before breaking out Sunday afternoon against a Nationals pitching staff that entered ranked 26th in the majors with a 4.89 ERA. Advertisement Freeman has felt his struggles acutely. He's now 15-for-75 (.200) since the start of June after going 1-for-4 with a bloop single and two strikeouts Sunday. 'I haven't been very good for a while,' Freeman said Saturday night. He's repeated his typical net drill 'many, many times.' He's tried having his third round of hitting outside on the field, one of his normal troubleshoot strategies when he's scuffling. 'I've gone through every cue 16 times over again in the last six weeks, so just waiting for it to click,' Freeman said. His season line remains sterling (.321 average, .914 OPS). In all likelihood, his June will be a blip. Freeman's frustration was palpable, nonetheless. The good news is, his ankle is still manageable. The quad issue he was dealing with for part of this slump is a thing of the past. 'No aches. No pains,' Freeman said. 'The only pain is the swing. Maybe tomorrow.' Max Muncy had more than a handful of minutes to think in the sixth inning, a rarity in the pitch clock era. Nationals reliever Jose A. Ferrer had entered into a jam, went down 2-1 in the count to Muncy and then lingered uncomfortably around the mound. 'It was very difficult to throw in the zone (with the mound like that),' Ferrer explained in Spanish. Catcher Keibert Ruiz joined him to try to find a solution. So did a pair of umpires until Prior ran down the tunnel to retrieve the grounds crew to work on the mound. 2025年6月23日 WSH vs LAD ソロカから変わった Jose A. Ferrerの要求で、水入り？土入れ 流れが、うーんと思ってたら 10号グランドスラム イイネ 7回、守備も溌剌としてきた — Ozzy_Days (@Jiji_Days) June 22, 2025 So, Muncy waited. He'd already seen Ferrer the night before, and the lefty was pitching for the fourth time in five days. Familiarity was on Muncy's side. Now, so was time. 'For me, it was just catch your breath,' Muncy said. 'When he's ready, he's ready. And let's get a swing off.' The delay appeared primed to stunt the only momentum the Dodgers had generated all afternoon. Soroka had struck out a career-high 10 Dodgers through the first five innings and held a 3-0 lead. When Dalton Rushing led off the sixth with a double, it marked Los Angeles' second hit of the game. A walk and hit by pitch left them loaded as the Nationals turned to Ferrer, who went down in the count and asked for work to be done on the mound. Advertisement Two pitches later, Muncy got a sinker over the heart of the plate and laced it to left center for a go-ahead grand slam, his 200th home run in a Dodger uniform. He got No. 201 an inning later, launching a center-cut fastball from Cole Henry into the pavilion seats for a three-run homer. Muncy's season has more than just stabilized after a brutal start. He might even be sneaking into All-Star discussions, entering the day fourth among National League third baseman in FanGraphs WAR (1.6) even before Sunday's two-homer, seven-RBI outburst. He's up to a 131 wRC+, nearly matching his 135 mark from a year ago. Since trying on glasses to correct an astigmatism in his right eye, he's hit .282/.423/.570 with 11 home runs. 'It's definitely a snowball effect,' Muncy said. 'Confidence is high right now. I feel good in the box. I feel really good with my mechanics. I'm seeing the ball well.'
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Report: The Suns will be keeping Jalen Green
The Phoenix Suns have officially pulled the trigger on a franchise-altering move, sending 15-time All-Star Kevin Durant to the Houston Rockets. After weeks of speculation, proposals, and rumored multi-team negotiations, the final deal was surprisingly straightforward. Two teams, one superstar, and a future reset in motion. When the news broke, most Suns fans weren't surprised by one of the core pieces coming back to Phoenix: Jalen Green. The former No. 2 overall pick in the 2021 NBA Draft was always going to be part of the return package. He had to in order for the money to work. But his fit in Phoenix? That's where things get murky. Green is, for all intents and purposes, a shooting guard. A 6'4' scorer with athleticism to spare. So is Devin Booker. So is Bradley Beal. And now, if the roster remains unchanged, Phoenix will allocate an eye-popping $140.1 million next season to the shooting guard position alone. That's over 90% of the projected salary cap dedicated to three players who thrive in the same space on the floor. It's a logjam. An expensive one. So surely, logic says Jalen Green is being acquired with another move in mind. Maybe Green is a trade asset in waiting. Maybe flexibility is the real prize here. But if you ask Arizona Sports insider John Gambadoro, that's not the case. According to his reporting, the Suns fully intend to keep Green and pair him in the backcourt alongside Devin Booker. That's a bold strategy, Cotton. Let's see if it leads to playoff wins…or just another episode of 'Whose Team Is It Anyway?' starring Devin Booker and friends. It's déjà vu all over again. A decade ago, the Suns trotted out a three-headed point guard experiment with Eric Bledsoe, Goran Dragic, and Isaiah Thomas, a trio that looked great in NBA2K but had all the chemistry of oil and water in real life. Now? It's the remix. Three shooting guards, all under 6'6', all wired to score, and all sharing one basketball. If they're all still on the roster when media day arrives the least they can do is recreate that iconic photo, the modern-day version of 'who gets the last shot?' just with slightly different hairstyles and slightly bigger paychecks. From a roster construction standpoint, it feels like the Suns are trying to run a triangle offense without any corners. Three talented guards, one shared skillset, zero clarity. One of the few logical conclusions to draw from the current state of the Suns' roster is this: they're preparing to move on from Bradley Beal. And after the Kevin Durant trade, the path to doing so becomes a bit more intriguing. A buyout-and-waive of Beal — which would put nearly $97 million on the books in dead cap over five years (roughly $19 million annually) — is the nuclear option. It might create some short-term financial flexibility, but it would cripple the Suns competitively. No contending team survives with that much dead money weighing them down. But Phoenix didn't just ship out Durant. They restocked their war chest. In the trade with Houston, they regained their own 2025 first-round pick — now the No. 10 selection in this year's draft — along with five second-rounders, including pick No. 59. For a team that's been asset-poor for years, that's a notable shift. And suddenly, the math changes. Could the Suns now package Beal and the No. 10 pick to make a trade more palatable to potential suitors? Could attaching draft capital help unload Beal's contract and, in the process, give Phoenix a chance to reshape the roster with more balance and positional logic? It's all speculation for now. But the clock is ticking. The draft is days away. Listen to the latest episode of the Suns JAM Session Podcast below. To stay up to date on every episode, subscribe to the pod on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, YouTube Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or Castbox. Please subscribe, rate, and review. More from Recap: Denver Nuggets Hold Off Phoenix Suns 120-104 The Dudley Double: Suns forward will match your donations to Bright Side Night! What the heck are the Phoenix Suns doing on offense? Locked On Suns Tuesday: Should we start to worry about Devin Booker's shooting? Gamethread: Suns take on the Nuggets Jared Dudley emerges as the Phoenix Suns' new sixth man
