When history looks back on this dismal period for the Tennessee Titans, it won’t be kind. Too many bad defeats and bad decisions and bad hires and staff turnover and bad players and just plain bad football.
And one truly outstanding player who spent his prime years swim-moving against the current.
One day, eventually, football will appreciate defensive lineman Jeffery Simmons' excellence. If he was on a better team, he’d easily be considered one of the league’s best defensive players. Instead, he continues to slum it at age 29 in Nashville, underrated and starring for a small audience and a franchise that’s fortunate to have at least one premium player of his caliber.
For years, Simmons has been the Titans’ outlier. That's still true under Robert
Saleh, even when that wasn't intended.
It took only two games for Simmons to disprove what the Tennessee Titans’ first-year head coach boasted couldn’t be done in his defense.
It’s amusing, given how quickly that transpired, to think back on that bravado exuded by Saleh this past summer. He couldn’t have sounded more confident or more dismissive in proclaiming that no defensive lineman — even Simmons — would be able to withstand a high percentage of snaps at the pace demanded by his scheme.
“I’ve said it before: If he’s able to go 50 plays out of 60, he’s not doing it right,” Saleh said of Simmons in June.
Uh-huh.
How about 66 of 76 defensive snaps?
Because that’s how many Simmons logged in the Titans’ Week 2 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles.
That's 87% of the Titans’ defensive plays — up from Simmons’ 75% in Week 1 and his average of 81% last season — and even more remarkable, it was during a scorching game in 100-degree temperatures with a heat index on turf level well beyond that. Fellow Titans defensive tackle John Franklin-Myers played 33 snaps, half as many as Simmons.
As far as “doing it right,” Simmons was listed with a sack and three QB hits against Philly. He pressured Jalen Hurts into an underthrow that Marcus Harris intercepted in the fourth quarter, a key twist in the game that allowed the Titans’ offense to drive and take a late lead.
ESPN analyst Seth Walder posted on social media that Simmons has 19 pass-rush wins this season. That’s four more than any other player in the NFL, and only two other players have more than 11.
Top 10 players by pass rush wins this season.
— Seth Walder (@SethWalder) September 22, 2026
-Jeffery Simmons, dear god
-Dallas Turner has arrived
-Boye Mafe being what Bengals need, keeping up PRWR with expanded playing time!
-I thought Bradley Chubb was washed and was critical of that signing. Looking like a bad take! pic.twitter.com/jnCnlYJTlm
“Jeffery Simmons, dear God,” is how Walder explained it.
Here’s how Saleh put it: “He’s a freakin’ animal. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
That was the coach's response when asked about Simmons’ high snap count against Philly. It was a bold statement. Saleh has coached some tremendous defensive stars over the years.
But few, I’d imagine, ever meant as much to their teams as Simmons does to this one.
“As the game is going, I just get in that mode," Simmons said. "I didn't know how many snaps I played. Did I feel it later that evening? Yes. But that's the nature of football games . . . I feel like I prepare myself for these type of moments.”
Saleh said ideally they’d “calm it down for the long run” in terms of playing time, but here’s betting that doesn’t happen with Simmons, so long as he stays healthy.
Clearly, these Titans are exponentially better with Simmons on the field. There’s no reason to restrict his game snaps if he’s physically capable of playing more at a high level.
Saleh was incorrect about that this summer. Simmons, meanwhile, was correct when he politely pushed back publicly against Saleh’s expectation of reduced playing time as a part of the D-line’s rotation.
“I know there was a lot of talks of, ‘If you can play more than 40 snaps in this defense, that means you're not playing the right way,’” Simmons said in June. “But each and every day I wake up, it's how can I separate myself from everyone else? . . . I kind of have that mindset that I'm not everyone else. I'm a different breed, and my mindset is I want to play more than four snaps in a row.”
Different breed, huh?
Saleh — now — can confirm.
“He's a special player,” the coach said. “We're lucky to have him.”
Reach Tennessean sports columnist Gentry Estes at gestes@tennessean.com and hang out with him on Bluesky @gentryestes.bsky.social
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Titans coach Robert Saleh: I've never seen anything like Jeffery Simmons | Estes
