Thoughts on the Jeffery Simmons contract situation

It seems like there is something almost every day that gets Titans Twitter all fired up. Earlier this week it was the NFL trade deadline. Yesterday it was the article in The Athletic by Dan Pompei where Jeffery Simmons made some comments about his contract. You should click that link and read the whole article because it is really good.

The part of the article that got everyone all in a tizzy was this:

“It was, ‘We want you to be here, but we don’t know exactly when we’ll be able to pay you,’” he says. “The Titans were like, ‘We don’t know if we’re going to be able to offer you what you think you are worth. We want to pay you, but we don’t know where it’s going to come from.’ That’s basically what it was, not an offer.”

Some people took that as the Tennessee Titans are going to make Simmons mad and he is going to walk. That was not the correct way to take it. That conversation, according to Pompei, took place this offseason. The Titans didn’t have cap space to give Simmons a new deal at that point.

Things will be different this offseason. First off, it will help them from a salary cap perspective to re-do Big Jeff’s contract. His cap number on the 5th-year option is $10.7 million. They can reduce that number with an extension.

There are also plenty of contracts they can move on from after the season including Taylor Lewan, Robert Woods, and Zach Cunningham. Those three moves around $37 million against the cap. Now, they will obviously have to replace those guys with other players, but they should be able to find cheaper guys to give them similar production.

Also, Simmons really wants to be here:

Now, before you say “Yeah but A.J. Brown said the same things” I will caution you that this situation and Brown’s situation are completely different. Brown wanted to go play with his best friend Jalen Hurts and forced the Titans into a corner. I doubt Simmons does something like that.

Anyway, there are a lot of different ways to create room for a deal for Simmons. They aren’t letting him walk. He is everything they want in a football player. There are plenty of things in life to worry about. Jeffery Simmons leaving the Titans isn’t one of them.

I talked about all this AND more on today’s MCM Radio:

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