Justin Simmons didn’t play Sunday against Miami and he’s not sure he’ll play this weekend against Chicago, but he did some defending Wednesday nonetheless.
The Broncos veteran safety jumped to shield his already embattled defensive coordinator, Vance Joseph, after Denver gave up 70 points to the Dolphins and catapulted to the bottom of nearly every defensive metric in the NFL through three weeks.
“Have I seen seen the group rally behind (Joseph)?” Simmons repeated back to a reporter rhetorically during his post-practice news conference. “What are you trying to get from that question, is what I’m trying to ask?”
Then he set about answering.
“I think this: I think that question is trying to pin a certain narrative against the defense and whatever people think is being called and with Coach Joseph,” Simmons said. “The moral of the story is this: You go watch that film and there are numerous amounts of things that, obviously, went wrong. But in no way, shape or form does that ever come down to one person.”
He was just getting going.
“I feel responsible even though I wasn’t even playing,” Simmons said. “I feel personally responsible for a bunch of different things — not going to get into the details about it. I know Kareem (Jackson) feels the same way as a leader. There’s other guys that feel the same way as leaders. That’s just not the standard we hold ourselves to. I’m not up here throwing a fit and cussing and showing a bunch of emotion, but it hurt. And that was embarrassing to just be a part of. By no means does that fall under the spectrum of one person.
“Coach Joseph, I believe in him and I believe in this staff. I believe in the players we have in the room. One game does not minimize or maximize what a select group is made of.”
Getting Simmons back against Chicago or in the near future would certainly help the Broncos’ cause and Joseph’s, too. Several players on Sunday in the locker room said they thought they had a good plan for Miami and said the blame rests with players on the field, not with their coordinator.
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