Ahead of Saturday’s deadline for NFL teams to trim their rosters down to 53 players, the Bills cut quarterback Matt Simms, who is the son of former NFL player Phil Simms. The younger Simms went undrafted out of Tennessee in 2012 and had spent the previous three seasons with the Jets.
While it would appear having Phil Simms as your father would be a good thing in terms of landing a job in the NFL, it appears to be working against Matt. Atleast, that’s what his older brother Chris thinks.
Chris Simms was recently on WFAN in New York and brought up the subject as not being as favorable as you might think, due to his father’s role as an analyst for CBS Sports.
“NFL head coaches, GMs, organizations, they don’t want people looking in at what they do behind the scenes. Having that know-all path does hurt my brother,” Simms said via the New York Daily News. “I know it does because I’ve been told by coaches all over the league that, ‘Hey we like your brother, but our front office doesn’t want to deal with it’. I’ve had coaches tell me: ‘I don’t think our GM was comfortable bringing him in. I don’t think your last name is helping Matt.’”
“They’re (coaches and GMs) afraid if Matt tells our dad something, if Matt thinks the coach is doing something crazy as far as running the team, they’re afraid he’ll tell our dad and our dad might tell other coaches,” Simms said.
It’s understandable general managers would be cautious in certain situations, especially when it comes to the potential for team sensitive information to leave the building. That said, it seems highly unlikely Phil Simms would jeopardize his or his son’s career in that fashion. And that’s provided Matt did reveal information to his father.
When it comes to Matt Simms not being able to stick with the Bills, this play during the team’s preseason game against the Lions certainly didn’t help either.
