Jeffery Simmons keeps making the case that he belongs in the game’s highest defensive tier, and Week 6 gave Titans fans another front-row look at why. In Tennessee’s win over the Indianapolis Colts, Simmons piled up two sacks and added a forced and recovered fumble, once again tilting the game from the interior.
This has been the shape of his 2025 season from the jump. Simmons entered the year already carrying the résumé of a premier defensive tackle, with four Pro Bowls, two second-team All-Pro selections, and then his first first-team All-Pro nod in 2025.
The production has matched the reputation. Over his career, he has averaged 66 tackles, 11 tackles for loss, 15 quarterback hits, 7.5 sacks and five batted passes per season, and this year he’s tracking toward another huge finish.
The raw numbers are only part of the picture, though. Brandon Thorn, who knows trench play as well as anyone, has Simmons leading the pass-rush conversation by one metric that weighs both the quality of the rush and the volume of chances a defender gets. In Thorn’s update, Simmons sat at 3.00 in PQR through Week 5, ahead of Abdul Carter at 2.00 and Boye Mafe at 1.75 with 14 HQ pressures, while Greg Rousseau led overall TPR.
The broader point is hard to miss: even with the Titans sitting at 1-5, Simmons is still performing like a wrecking ball. He plays with the kind of urgency that makes every snap feel like it matters, and that kind of effort showed up clearly against Indianapolis.
For a defensive tackle, the path to Canton is built on years of elite play and box-score production, and Simmons has both the track record and the momentum. But to keep pushing that Hall of Fame case forward, he’ll need to keep stacking games like this one - sacks, tackles for loss, and dominant snaps against high-end interior linemen such as Colts guard Quenton Nelson.
What fans saw Sunday was simple: an elite defender at the height of his powers, still building a Hall of Fame case in real time.
In Other News...
Titans Suddenly Face A Real Question About Alontae Taylor
A quiet but notable subplot emerged before Tennessees game against Indianapolis when Robert Saleh made the call to bench starting cornerback Alontae Taylor as part of a reset. Saleh framed the move as a way to help Taylor adjust to life as an outside corner in the teams defensive system, and Taylor took the news in stride, acknowledging the decision while stressing his motivation to adapt and improve.
For the Titans, the situation raises a real roster and development question at a position that has been under the microscope all season. It also landed on a day when there was some good news elsewhere, with Julius Chestnut earning AFC Special Teams Player of the Week honors for his punt block, while the team continued sorting through injury updates and practice participation ahead of the matchup. [Read more 🡒]
Titans Fans Noticed A Familiar Voice Suddenly Missing In Nashville
For more than a decade, Blaine Bishop has been one of the more familiar football voices around Nashville, mixing his former Titans perspective with weekday radio on 104.5 The Zone. The ex-safety had been with the station since January 2010 and had co-hosted the Cover Two show with Zach Lyons, giving listeners a steady, recognizable presence well after his playing days ended.
Bishop is no longer part of that lineup. His last appearance on Cover Two came on Oct. 15, and producer Ross Johnston has been filling in since then, leaving a noticeable change for Titans fans who had grown used to hearing Bishop's take alongside Lyons every week. [Read more 🡒]
Titans Could Make A Painful Deadline Choice Fans Knew Was Coming
At 1-5, the Titans are once again staring at the kind of deadline that usually forces a hard reset, and this time the conversation is not about buying help but about deciding which veterans still fit the long view. The reported stance is clear enough: outside of the rookie class, Cam Ward and Jeffery Simmons, just about everyone else can be discussed if the return helps Tennessee build draft capital before the Nov. 10 deadline.
That makes the next two weeks worth watching around players like Calvin Ridley, Tony Pollard and Cody Barton, all of whom could draw different levels of interest depending on what a contender needs. Ridley has been linked to the Rams, Pollard has been tied to the Bengals and Barton has been floated to the Bills, but those are only speculative fits for now, the sort of deadline chatter that says as much about where the Titans are headed as it does about where these veterans might land. [Read more 🡒]