How Jeffery Simmons is Still Motivating Titans Through Tough Times

Jeffery Simmons has been with the Tennessee Titans through good and bad. 

For the last five years or so, it's been mostly bad. It wasn't always that way for Simmons when he came into the league.

During his rookie year, the Titans reached the AFC Championship Game. They were a couple of plays away from making the Super Bowl. 

The Titans made the playoffs for the first three years of his tenure with the franchise. Then, things started to change in 2022. 

Tennessee got off to a 7-3 start, then lost its next seven games to finish 7-10 and miss the playoffs. The Titans missed the postseason again in 2023. 

From 2024-25, the Titans went 6-28. They had the same record in those seasons, which is especially bad because it shows no improvement over that time. 

During times like these, it's especially hard to motivate your teammates week in and week out. The Titans are 0-5 after losing 26-3 to the Houston Texans. Things are not looking great for the team this year. 

For Simmons, he has to find a way to inspire his teammates as a leader. He spoke about finding ways to motivate the team throughout these tough times. 

"I think that's the easier part," Simmons said. "The easy thing to do when things are really tough. We already got enough noise on the outside, everybody pointing fingers from the outside looking in. Don't really know the scheme. Don't know what we supposed to be doing as a team. All they see is, 'Oh, this guy not blocking a wide-open guy.' They don't know the scheme. It's enough of that outside the building, and my job as a leader is how can we keep the team together. Cause leadership is from within. It's the locker room. How can we keep the locker together to keep believing that we belong? No matter our record that we won't take a backseat to nobody. My job is to continue to come in here and bring God with me. I attack my day to day, I don't care what may happen, we 0-0 right now." 

The Titans have a lot of guys who weren't used to losing like this in college. For Cam Ward, he nearly led Miami to the College Football Playoff in 2024. Even during his time at Incarnate Word and Washington State, nothing was like what he's gone through with the Titans. 

Carnell Tate played in the CFP at Ohio State. Tate never lost more than two games in college. 

This has been an unusual experience for both Tate and Ward. Simmons has the difficult task of keeping them motivated, as well as the veterans on the team, like John Franklin-Myers, Jermaine Johnson, Alontae Taylor, and others. 

The Titans have much tougher games on the schedule now that divisional play has opened. The Titans still have to play the Indianapolis Colts and Jacksonville Jaguars twice. The team must still face the Texans on the road later in the season. 

Even the non-divisional matchups don't look like a pushover. The Titans face the Cincinnati Bengals and the Cleveland Browns. 

Tennessee also faces the Las Vegas Raiders, Detroit Lions, Dallas Cowboys, Washington Commanders, and Pittsburgh Steelers. With a last-place schedule, the Titans have their work cut out for them. 

Motivating the team will be hard if the Titans continue this losing streak. We'll see what the Titans are made of if it keeps going. 

For now, the team will try to go 1-0 against the Colts on Sunday.