Jeffery Simmons Signed the Biggest DT Deal Ever. Now Comes the Hard Part.

That’s not a punishment. It’s the plan. Three weeks after the Tennessee Titans made Simmons the highest-paid interior defensive lineman in NFL history — a three-year, $105.8 million extension with $100 million guaranteed, according to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport and Mike Garafolo — the veteran defensive tackle is heading into training camp under a coach who wants to take reps away from him. The idea is that fewer snaps now mean more impact when it counts.

Simmons’ new deal averages $35.3 million a year, well clear of Chris Jones’ $31.75 million mark with the Kansas City Chiefs, which had stood as the position’s ceiling. The Titans announced the extension the same day it was reported, and general manager Mike Borgonzi didn’t hedge about what it meant.

“Jeffery Simmons is a pillar for our franchise and embodies what it means to be a Titan,” Borgonzi said in a team statement. “He’s the premier defensive tackle in the National Football League and you win with players like Jeffery.”

Why Jeffery Simmons’ Titans Contract Reflects a Scheme Change, Not Just a Track Record

Simmons earned the money on the field last year. He posted a career-high 11 sacks in 2025, adding 17 tackles for loss and a league-leading 60 quarterback pressures among interior defenders, per Next Gen Stats. He made his first All-Pro team and his fourth Pro Bowl. Those numbers came in a defense that mostly asked him to two-gap — hold his ground at the line of scrimmage and eat blockers rather than shoot gaps.

Saleh’s defense doesn’t work that way. The new head coach, hired after Tennessee finished 3-14, wants his front four attacking upfield on nearly every snap. Defensive linemen split double teams instead of absorbing them. It’s the same attacking front Saleh built in San Francisco, a system he said traces back to former Titans defensive line coach Jim Washburn’s rotation-heavy approach from over a decade ago.

Simmons has spent his career mostly playing the two-gap technique. He’s ready to leave it behind.

“It’s kind of my first year playing in an attack defense,” Simmons said at minicamp. “That’s my game. I like to play on the other side of the line of scrimmage… It demands you to make plays.”

The Rotation Plan That Comes With the Titans’ Record Contract

Here’s the tension. Simmons has played at least 80% of Tennessee’s defensive snaps in every season since 2020 when healthy, according to Pro Football Reference. He logged 764 snaps in 2025 despite missing two games. Saleh doesn’t want anywhere close to that workload from him in 2026.

The coach has been blunt about the ceiling he has in mind.

“If he’s able to go to 50 plays out of 60, he’s not doing it right,” Saleh said.

Saleh’s stated target is a rotation that caps defensive linemen around four snaps in a row before a breather, with the front stabilizing near 60% of total snaps per player. The logic: a defense that’s full speed on every rep for four plays wears down blockers faster than one that’s playing measured but tired football for eight straight. Save Simmons for third down and the two-minute drill, when the game is decided, and let him go all-out instead of managing his gas tank across 60-plus snaps.

“The whole point of the rotation is to make sure that Jeffrey Simmons is ready for that one-on-one when we need it,” Saleh said during minicamp last month, via ESPN’s Turron Davenport. “Third down, two-minute, make sure he’s fresh, ready to roll and ready to exert every last fiber in his body and winning that one-on-one.”

Simmons, for his part, isn’t rushing to agree to the plan. As of minicamp, he and Saleh hadn’t sat down for the actual snap-count conversation. Simmons made clear which way he’ll push when they do.

“I want to have that mindset of, ‘Nah, coach, I could go for more,'” Simmons said. “With the way I train, the way I try to get my body ready, I want to show him that maybe I could go six plays instead of the four that they’re talking about.”

Health, Conditioning and the Elbow That Finally Got Fixed

Part of Simmons’ confidence traces back to his own body. He underwent a cleanup procedure on his right elbow in February, addressing an injury that had kept him from fully straightening the arm for roughly two and a half years and forced him to wear a brace during games. He can now fully extend it. He’s also stuck with the offseason meal plan that helped him trim body fat and add muscle heading into last season, and he’s been doing early individual conditioning work on the side field during camp workouts.

Simmons said the goal is showing up to training camp — veterans report July 28 — in the best shape of his career, in part to make the case that he can handle more than Saleh’s plan currently allows.

Defensive line coach Aaron Whitecotton, who’s tasked with implementing the scheme change day to day, has praised how Simmons has taken to the new demands.

“He sets the tone for the defense,” Whitecotton said. “He’s a leader on and off the field. His work ethic and the way he approaches it are infectious.”

Tennessee Rebuilt the Front Around Him

The Titans didn’t just extend Simmons. They retooled the whole defensive line to support the new scheme. Tennessee traded defensive tackle T’Vondre Sweat to the New York Jets for edge rusher Jermaine Johnson II, signed veterans John Franklin-Myers, Solomon Thomas, Jordan Elliott and Jacob Martin in free agency, and used the No. 31 overall pick on Auburn’s Keldric Faulk. The additions give Saleh the bodies he needs to run a legitimate rotation instead of asking a handful of players to play 70-plus snaps a game.

Linebacker Cody Barton, who watched Simmons dominate from the second level last season, thinks the new pieces around him only raise the ceiling.

“That dude, Jeff, is one of the best to do it,” Barton said.

What Simmons’ Production Could Look Like in an Attack Scheme

The numbers from last season already stood out relative to the rest of the league’s interior defenders. Extending those production rates into a scheme built specifically to generate backfield disruption is the bet Tennessee is making with its money.

Those figures came largely from a two-gap role that limited how often Simmons was turned loose to just get after the quarterback. Give him more snaps designed purely to attack, even while trimming his overall snap count, and Tennessee’s front office is projecting real Defensive Player of the Year upside — an admittedly speculative but not unreasonable read given the scheme fit, according to analysts who’ve studied Saleh’s track record building disruptive fronts in San Francisco.

None of it is guaranteed. Attack-style defenses carry real risk if linemen sell out for gaps they can’t reach and lose run-fit discipline in the process. Simmons, entering his eighth NFL season, is generally regarded as experienced enough to avoid that trap — though how he and Saleh ultimately resolve the snap-count disagreement will shape how much of his talent actually shows up on Sundays this fall.