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That Was an Emotional Rollercoaster of a Day For Jeffery Simmons
By Matt Schultz
Published:
Jeffery Simmons had himself quite a week. First, he told the media that the Titans would be just fine in Week 2 if they could “make Jalen Hurts be a quarterback,” which was either a fair defensive plan or bulletin board material, depending on how you felt like looking at it/if you were trying to aggregate it as ragebait:
#Titans Jeffery Simmons on Jalen Hurts: We just need to make Jalen Hurts be a QB. Stop his runs, make sure Hurts doesn't get out of the pocket and make plays.
— TURRON DAVENPORT (@TDavenport_NFL) September 16, 2026
Then Simmons gave the Eagles a run for their money with a solid performance on Sunday afternoon, racking up 6 total tackles (3 solo, 3 assisted), 1 sack (1 yard loss), 1 tackle for loss, and 3 QB hits:
As Sunday’s game was winding down, Tennessee’s play had their star defensive tackle hyped. After the Titans took the lead in the fourth quarter, Simmons eyed the crowd overrun by Eagles fans and screamed obscenities at them, clearly feeling himself, amped on what he thought was about to be a statement win:
But things didn’t quite pan out that way.
Jalen Hurts put together an excellent final drive in the last two minutes of the fourth quarter, going 65 yards on 9 plays, and capped it off with a touchdown pass to Darius Cooper with nine seconds left on the clock. The TD gave the Eagles the lead, and it would be the last score of the game — the Birds won the game 24-20.
Jeffrey Simmons’ tune changed from there. With the clock showing all zeroes, he wasn’t telling the crowd to “suck my dick” anymore. He wasn’t grabbing his bulge in a “hold these nuts” type of way. Instead, he was dapping up Jalen Hurts during a post-game interview to congratulate him on the win. This was like ten minutes after he told everyone to “suck my dick,” too. What a whirlwind:
Then he had to try to work through the ups and downs of the day while talking to the media:
“Very disappointed man, I mean, situational football, two minutes. We gotta be at our very best. I mean, know the time, know who they wanna get the ball to. That’s when you have to be mentally trained to just do your job. Whoever on the field gotta do their job… It’s simple, we didn’t do our job… Especially that last play, it’s like — as players, we have to be also smart in situations, um, like know what they’re gonna try to run… It just came down to two minute execution. We didn’t execute. It’s hard to win in this league. And when you got a team in a situation like that, no timeouts, it just come back down to the basic fundamentals. Come back down to everyone just doing their job… We 0-2. I’m frustrated as hell right now. We’re 0-2.“
Simmons also spoke on his Jalen Hurts comments that went viral this week:
“That’s not a shot at Jalen that he can’t throw the ball downfield. We saw that he can throw the ball downfield. He’s a Super Bowl MVP. It’s not a shot at Jalen. Thing was, if we could keep him in the pocket and eliminate him from scrambling and running, which I think we did a hell of a job of that, and making him go sideways, like, we could be successful. Especially getting to third down… and that was my point. Making Jalen Hurts stay in the pocket and just be a quarterback. It wasn’t, ‘Oh, he can’t be a quarterback in the pocket.’ But when it really mattered, we wasn’t at our best today, and that was the two minute drive.”
Lot to dig into there. Sounds like Simmons himself is still processing everything that happened. May take some time.
I should say, though, credit where it’s due: I thought it was very cool that he went up to Jalen to congratulate him after the game. Made me like Simmons way more, which is nice. If the Eagles lost today, I know 100% that I’d hate this guy a ton. Felt like that’s where things were heading for a minute there. Glad I don’t have to worry about that now.
Matt Schultz is a comedy and sports writer from Philadelphia. He’s written extensively for ClickHole, The Onion, and Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco. His work has been featured in Vulture, Deadspin, The A.V. Club, Paste Magazine, and other publications. Much of his sports journalism can be found on college basketball websites that don’t exist anymore (PhilaHoops Heads rise up…) email: M.Schultz@sportradar.com