The Tennessee Titans are gearing up for the start of the regular season on September 13, and as roster changes are happening, there is one player who remains the steadfast face of the team: Jeffery Simmons.
As the longest-tenured Titan on the roster, Simmons has become the unequivocal face of the franchise, and he is likely to remain so as long as he is with the team. One of the reasons Simmons is the face is because of his dominance on the defensive side of the ball, but it's also because he puts the success of the team before his own stats.
Recently, he spoke with Josh Chambers on The Pivot podcast and discussed his "feed my family" mentality.
Jeffrey Simmons explains his “feed my family” mentality and says he stopped setting sack goals because
it caused him to hurt his own team's defense “When I step on the field, I don’t care about anything else but how can I be the best for my team? My first couple years in the… pic.twitter.com/wHUvDOg9lM
— Josh Chambers (@JoshChambers) August 30, 2026
"When I step on the field, I don’t care about anything else but how can I be the best for my team?" Simmons said. "My first couple years in the league, it was, 'Let me set a goal. Let me set a goal for 10 sacks a year. Let me set a goal for this many tackles for loss.' But it took me away from the main goal. Once the game gets going and it’s the fourth quarter, I don’t have a sack, I don’t have a tackle for loss, now I’m chasing plays. Now I’m hurting the defense by jumping out of the gap trying to make a play.
"So as I got older, especially last year, my thing was, how can I really focus on being in the moment? Make the play when it’s there. Celebrate my teammate, because I know I’m going to get the slide. I know I’m going to get double-teamed, triple-teamed. But when my opportunity comes to make that play, I can’t not be ready for it. Even when a double team comes, how can I create a one-on-one, even on a double team?
"How can I get to the center? How can I get to a different level to affect the game, affect the quarterback? That’s just my mindset when I touch the field. I see red. You got a different color on. It’s red. You in my way; you’re trying to stop me from feeding my family. That’s just the way I see the game."
Simmons' larger-than-life personality and overall size earned him the nickname Big Jeff. Opponents know what Big Jeff brings to the table; that's why he knows he's going to get double and triple-teamed on certain plays. But he also knows that when that happens, it means one or more of his teammates has an opportunity to make a play. That's how his "feed my family" mentality was born.
When players on a team are more focused on how they can improve the team and how they can help the team win than on their individual success, that's how a team starts winning. That's how a team starts seeing success.
The Titans have a new coaching staff in 2026, and they have new faces on the roster on both sides of the ball. But when you have leaders like Jeffery Simmons and Cam Ward out there making sure the team comes before their individual success, other players take notice. They start focusing on the team, too. And it might take some time because of all the new faces, but they'll start seeing wins, too.
This article originally appeared on Titans Wire: Jeffery Simmons' 'feed my family' mentality is a recipe for success
