Analyst: Playoff Loss was Simmons' 'Coming Out Party'
Everyone who follows football ought to know about Jeffery Simmons by now, according to one national analyst.
Peter King named the Tennessee Titans defensive tackle one of his defensive players of the week in his latest Football Morning in America column, based on what happened in the four NFL divisional playoff games over the weekend. (King also tabbed quarterback Ryan Tannehill one of his goats of the week for a performance that, in King’s estimation, was “one of the easiest” to determine as goat-worthy for a playoff game in some time).
Simmons had three sacks and tied for second on the defense with eight tackles in Saturday’s 19-16 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals. It was the second three-sack game of his career (he also had three in a prime time victory over the Los Angeles Rams in the regular season). The tackles were a career-high, one more than his previous best, Dec. 6, 2020 at Cleveland, and more than twice as many as his most in his previous four postseason contests (three, last season against Baltimore).
From King:
The loss to Cincinnati was not Simmons’ fault, I’ll tell you that. … Saturday evening was the coming out party for the Titans’ first-round pick in 2019. In the Titans’ loss to Cincinnati, Simmons couldn’t have inflicted much more damage on Bengals QB Joe Burrow. He had three of Tennessee’s playoff-record nine sacks, for a combined loss of 27 yards, plus four pressures of Burrow, plus eight tackles. Not bad for a guy who had 13.5 sacks in 45 career regular-season and postseason games.
The performance was an exclamation point on a season during which Simmons established himself as one of the NFL’s best interior defensive linemen.
He was named a second-team All-Pro and was third among all defensive tackles with eight and a half sacks. He also broke up six passes, had 12 tackles for loss and finished third on the team with 54 tackles.
His performance contributed to a record-setting nine sacks for the defense against Cincinnati.
“That's one of the best D-lines in football to be quite honest with you,” Bengals coach Zac Taylor said. “We have a ton of respect for their team and their defense. And they can get after the passer. And they did a great job in coverage, mixing up some of the coverage looks.”
