Jeffery Simmons had one of those days that seemed to swing by the minute.
It started with a quote that lit up the week. Simmons told the media the Titans would be fine in Week 2 if they could “make Jalen Hurts be a quarterback,” a line that could be read as a defensive game plan or as easy fuel for anyone looking to turn it into bulletin board material.
On Sunday afternoon, Simmons backed up plenty of the talk with production. He finished with 6 total tackles, including 3 solo and 3 assisted, along with 1 sack for a 1-yard loss, 1 tackle for loss, and 3 QB hits.
He was in the middle of plenty of the action as the Eagles and Titans battled, and Tennessee’s late surge seemed to send Simmons over the top. After the Titans grabbed the lead in the fourth quarter, he was caught jawing at Eagles fans in the crowd and celebrating like a man who thought his team had just sealed the deal.
It didn’t last.
Jalen Hurts answered with a sharp final drive, pushing the Eagles 65 yards in 9 plays over the last two minutes and finishing it with a touchdown pass to Darius Cooper with nine seconds left. That score put Philadelphia ahead for good in a 24-20 win.
What happened next was the weirdest part of the day. After all the trash talk and emotion, Simmons was seen congratulating Hurts after the game, even as the clock read all zeroes.
Hurts and Simmons had a brief postgame exchange, with Hurts telling him, “You started that sh*t. I had to finish it.”
Simmons then had to walk reporters through the frustration of the loss and the collapse in the final two minutes.
“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. “
He also revisited the Jalen Hurts comments that had gone viral earlier in the 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.”
It was a long, strange day for Simmons, and he sounded like a player still sorting through all of it after the final whistle.
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