When the Seahawks host the New York Giants Sunday, one matchup to keep an eye on will be when cornerback Tharold Simon lines up across from Giants receiver Odell Beckham Jr. Not only will that be an intriguing battle because Beckham, a first-round pick in this year’s draft, has emerged as the Giants’ top offensive weapon since returning from an injury, and because Simon has shown promise since taking over as a starter with Byron Maxwell injured, but also because Simon and Beckham were teammates at LSU.
“It’s going to be fun,” Simon said. “I think it’s going to be pretty fun out there to battle. I never had that chance to go against somebody I played with in school, so I think there will be a lot of fun intensity out there. We’re going to be going at it, I know that, because he’ll be trying to beat me and I’ll be trying to beat him, so it’s going to be a lot of fun out there. I’m going to enjoy it.”
And yes, they’ll be some friendly trash talk involved, “Nah, it won’t be quiet. There’s going to a little bit of talking here and there, but it ain’t going to be fussy talking, it’ll be good talk.”
Asked what makes Beckham such a tough matchup, Simon said, “Everything. He goes out there and battles. He wants to be the best. He puts on a show. I remember his freshman year walking in there, seeing him and going, ‘Man, this kid is going be special.’ I was just a sophomore, but I saw it in him. He’s a great route runner, has good speed, real good at the line, very good hands. Dude probably wears like a 6X glove… That’s a big part of it, he’s got real good hand.”
As for what Simon thinks of his first few games on the field after missing all of last year and the beginning of this season due to injuries, he said he is getting more confident with the experience that comes with game action.
“It helped me grow a lot,” he said. “I played against St. Louis, but I only played really the first quarter and a little bit of the second quarter, then I sprained my ankle. When we played Carolina, I was out there the whole game gibberish, I still had a solid game, but gibberish, like shaken up. This past game, I felt real comfortable, felt like I belonged out there.”
And yes, Simon knows he was a little overzealous in that St. Louis game, which saw him draw two critical penalties. Simon was also thrown out of Seattle’s preseason game against Denver.
“It was just me going out there trying to do too much extra stuff and not doing what I do in practice, because I don’t go out there in practice and do all that, I just go out there and play football,” he said. “I think that’s all it was; trying to go out there and do more than I should be doing, and not being me. Now it’s settled down a lot out there and now it’s just time to play football.”
Despite missing all of last season with foot injuries, and the beginning of this year while recovering from knee surgery, Simon never doubted that he could play at a high level given the opportunity.
“Not at all, because I just think I’m one of the best athletes out there,” he said. “And once I could put it out there, then a lot of other people will know that this kid is something special. I believed that before I even walked in here. I believed it when I was in college, like I was just a special athlete. It’s a mentality, you’ve just got to get it out of you. Coming here helped me a lot just watching these guys, watching them grow, and me growing along on the side with them. It’s just helped me a lot to get the confidence to go out there and just perform at the level I’m supposed to be performing at.”
And what did he think of Richard Sherman saying that Simon was, “a little ahead of where I was” a few games into his career?
“It’s something special when somebody like that says that,” Simon said. “I joked around with him yesterday, I was like, ‘don’t be telling the people that. At this time in your career, you probably had like eight picks, I don’t even have one.’ I really respect him a lot; he’s always there for me. If I have a question, he’s answering it for me. Even when I don’t need nothing, he’s always on me. With the being too aggressive thing, he was like, ‘Settle down, settle down.’ Probably before every series, ‘Settle down, let’s go.’ I love that about him.”
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