With Bryce Petty arriving in the fourth round of the draft, it looks like Matt Simms is going to have to excel in the offseason and training camp in order to remain on the Jets depth chart at quarterback.
Such is the life of third quarterbacks in the NFL, although one member of Simms’ family thinks that the only reason Matt’s in that position is because of his last name. Chris Simms, who played eight years as an NFL quarterback, is willing to concede that his younger brother “hasn’t proven himself” as a starter, but says that Matt has played well in preseason and mop-up duty that hasn’t led to more work because of Phil Simms’ prominent position with CBS.
“Some of the preseason performances he had ... I truly believe if his last name was not Simms, teams would be wanting him to be their backup quarterback,” Chris Simms said on WFAN. “Because dad and I, of course, we know are not the most soft-spoken people in the world. The NFL, as you guys know, coaches are so conservative, very right wing, want everything to be private, don’t want anybody to know their stuff. Now you get a guy like Matt Simms and now Phil Simms knows what this team is doing behind the scenes and maybe he agrees or thinks it’s stupid … I do, I think some of that is part of the politics of the NFL.”
Phil Simms hasn’t had the coolest head about his son, as evidenced by a 2011 incident that saw him physically threaten Desmond Howard after Howard made critical comments about Matt when he was playing for the University of Tennessee as a junior. The youngest member of the Simms clan would lose his starting job with the Volunteers that year and started just two games in his final college season, which is a fairly shabby resume for even a third quarterback to bring with him into the NFL.
Neither that resume nor the fact that NFL teams have been willing to play anyone with any name/baggage if they think they will have a better chance of winning does anything to support the idea that the Simms name has been standing in the way of greater glory at the professional level, although publicly making a stink about a preconceived bias is a good way to make sure that it becomes part of the equation.
