Q: Has your father, Phil Simms, shared Giants stories, Bill Parcells stories or anything like that with you?
A: He’s shared a few with me over the years, for sure.
Q: What’s the best one he’s told you?
A: The one that always stays really relevant with me, one day I guess, my father was talking to Coach Parcells, and he’s just saying something about the game or whatever, and I guess Parcells goes, “No. You’re a battleship commander, you need to demand everything from them at every moment of every day. And you need to take control of your battleship like you’re going to war all the time.” And for some reason, that story has really kinda hit home with me. Because when you really are out there, it is your ship. You’re either moving the offense, or you’re sinking. I like that story. I like the thought of, “Yes, I am a commander, I need to take control of our army and control the team.” It’s something that’s probably been more important to me of late these past two years.
Q: On Opening Day, tell Jets fans why they should feel OK with you as the possible backup.
A: Hey, they have their own opinions, they can think whatever they want, the Jets fans, but I think I’ve shown in the preseason that I can get it done when my number’s called, from the start and to the finish of the game, and hopefully they can just believe in the local guy to get it done for ’em so . .. (smile).
Q: How would you compare yourself as a quarterback to your brother and your father?
A: It’s tough for me to say just because I didn’t really actually like grow up watching my father. But I think that our style of play is actually pretty similar.
Q: To your dad.
A: Yeah, and my brother too. We like to throw the ball down the field and show off our arms. I think that we’re better athletes than most people give us credit for too, at times. I don’t know, I kinda like having the gunslinger mentality, to be honest with you. I like to think like that, to be aggressive, and have fun.
Q: Give me a scouting report on you.
A: Strong arm … good athlete … can improvise and extend plays … and hopefully continue to make the right decisions (chuckle).
Q: You belong in this league?
A: I believe I do,. This preseason has given me a tremendous amount of confidence. … Marty [Mornhinweg, offensive coordinator] has just given me so much confidence in myself in leading this team. I’m truly grateful for the opportunity that all the coaches here have given me.
Q: Describe Geno Smith, 25 words or less.
A : Geno and Mark [Sanchez], both of them, tremendous quarterbacks, and whoever the starter’s gonna be, they’re gonna get the job done.
Q: How often would your dad take you in the backyard and throw the ball around?
A: I’ve probably thrown close to five million passes in my life, I would think, yeah (chuckle). At our house, especially when my brother’s around, it’s football camp almost all the time. It’s like we’re always like at the training table and talking ball and stuff like that. Yeah, me and Big Guy, we’ve had our fair share of father-son catches for sure. And some of them have been heated at times, and others … are good.
Q: Are you more like your mom or your dad?
A: (Chuckle) I want to say that I have a little bit of both in me. Maybe on the football field I’m a little bit more like my father (chuckle).
Q: In what way?
A: Big Guy, he was one of those guys, he’s like angry all the time, and I’m kinda like that too.
Q: Why are you do angry on the field?
A: I don’t know. Just one of those guys I guess, you know. Just hate everybody (smile).
Q: Do you think you have to play that way?
A: I don’t know … it’s just the way that I kinda keep my edge, I guess. Just take-on-the-world type of thought. … It’s just us against the world, you know?
Q: How do you think you’re like your mom?
A: We have very similar sense of humor, the way that we joke around and stuff like that, the way we talk to people, very Jersey sarcastic type of thing. … Definitely got that from her.
Q: Your father’s OK with you being with the Jets.
A: (Chuckle). I really don’t think he cares, I think he understands the business of everything too.
Q: How would you sum him up as father?
A: Extremely old-school. You can tell he’s just a blue-collar guy from Kentucky. No shortcuts with anything. Honesty. Do your job, earn respect, earn everything that you work for, and don’t expect anything to be handed to you. And he’s definitely instilled that into me.
Q: What’s it like watching him broadcast the Super Bowl on CBS and Sundays?
A: I guess since I kind of grew up with him doing that — I didn’t grow up with him as the player, I kinda grew up with as the broadcaster, unlike my brother did. I guess it’s kinda strange at times, but at the same time, I mean hey, he’s gotta do something, and he’s gotta do something that he likes and he loves doing it. He loves watching film and preparing for games like he’s a coach and all that stuff. It’s gonna be even more strange when my brother [Chris] actually does it for the first time this weekend. He just signed a deal with FOX and he’s gonna do college football this year. I don’t know how I’m gonna handle that (smile).
Q: How scary was it when Chris ruptured his spleen in 2006?
A: It was really difficult, it really was. At first, I wasn’t really sure what was going on, he’s dehydrated maybe.
Q: Were you at the game?
A: No I wasn’t, I was watching on TV with my family. And then after the game, we got the call, saying he’s going into surgery and he’s lost a lot of blood and he’s been bleeding internally and … my brother almost passed away. It was rough. He was a great player. It’s unfortunate ’cause I would have been really interested to see how his career would have turned out of something like this wouldn’t have happened.
Q: Why would you want to follow in your father’s footsteps?
A: Originally, I was trying to go into baseball, and I actually quit football my seventh grade year. I decided that I’d play baseball the whole year, then eighth grade year I was like, “Alright, maybe I’ll give football another shot.” Had a pretty good year, and went over to Bosco one day just to take a look at the school, and just fell in love with it. And then the whole intensity of football picked up with Coach [Greg] Toal and Nunzio [Campanile, offensive coordinator] and all those guys over there, and it just took off from there.
Q: Describe your experience at Louisville.
A: Just young and dumb and … just immature.
Q: In what way?
A: I wasn’t like a mature adult yet to really just like be a leader of grown men, and take that responsibility of being like a good quarterback. I was still enjoying being an 18-year-old kid and just doing stupid things.
Q: Was the marijuana thing embarrassing?
A: I did have an incident at Louisville, but nothing that was actually like jeopardizing to my time there at all. But at the same time, there was definitely some consequences (four-game benching) I had for that, but nothing that was too devastating.
Q: What was your dad’s reaction?
A: Just like any other father would be, just extremely disappointed, and obviously he understands that I made a bad decision, and I wasn’t thinking through the situation down the line.
Q: Describe Louisville coach Bobby Petrino.
A: Petrino left actually a few months before I was supposed to commit.
Q: How did you feel when that happened?
A: It was upsetting, just because I really was looking forward to playing for a guy like him, an offense like his. Had to kinda go through the whole recruiting again. But still ended up going to Louisville just because I felt comfortable with the area and some of the coaches that were left behind as well.
Q: What prompted your decision to transfer to El Camino?
Really what happened was I felt like at Louisville that I wasn’t gonna get quite the opportunity that I wanted no matter how hard I worked. I just felt like it would be best for me if I would go to El Camino instead of sitting out another year at another school. And just kind of earning my stripes again, and just proving to everyone I could just go and play blue-collar football and earn a spot again and see if I can really make it.
Q: Receiver Kenbrell Thompkins, now a rookie with the Patriots, was your roommate there. How big of an impact can he make with Tom Brady?
A: Plays really tough. Smart football player — has great field awareness for a receiver.
Q: Then you ended up at Tennessee and Lane Kiffin left.
A: I was there about five days before Lane left, yup.
Q: Maybe it’s you.
A: Yeah, may be. … Campanelli, he was just like, “Man, I’m never taking you to Vegas ’cause you have the worst luck ever with picking schools” (smile). … I was there for five days, I was actually watching film in the film room, and one of my teammates from El Camino says, “Hey, can you believe this thing with Lane Kiffin?” I was like, “What are you talking about?” And then I walk out of the room ’cause I’m about to call him, and I smell like a burning smell in the hallway. And I’m like, “What’s going on? Is the building on fire?” I look out the window, and there’s about 2,000 kids on the street burning mattresses, you know, the whole like, “Lane Kiffin stinks,” like all that, like just going crazy, and I was like, “What just happened here?” I don’t know what is going on. It was an unbelievable first week, that’s for sure, at Tennessee (chuckle). The exit meeting was even wilder.
Q: How so?
A: That was probably the first time I’ve seen Lane since I signed the scholarship to him. It was just wild, like I saw him, I’m going to school with him, and then the next time I see him he’s saying, “Goodbye, good luck.” It was just wild just how fast that happened.
Q: The Tennessee experience?
A: I definitely learned how to be a man in Tennessee. Had my fair share of opportunities, didn’t seize all the opportunities as well as I would have liked to looking back. I have a few regrets about how I played in some games, but at the same time, it really taught me how to be a man, and I learned a lot about some of the situations I was put in Tennessee. Met a lot of great people at Louisville, at El Camino and at Tennessee, truly grateful for the experience of becoming friends with some of these people, and just having the life experiences through football.
Q: What drives you?
A: Really my tough times in college, that’s definitely been a huge thing for me, just to overcome some of the things that I think I let slip through my fingers when I was in college, that I feel like I can hopefully overcome, and make this experience a lifetime experience that I’ll remember — I’ll always remember it, bit to make it that much more special.
Q: Two dinner guests?
A: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln.
Q: Favorite movies?
A: “Shawshank Redemption,” “Forrest Gump.”
Q: Favorite entertainer?
A: Billy Joel.
Q: Favorite meal?
A: Definitely anything Italian, for sure.
Q: How would you sum up what it’s been like being Phil Simms’ son?
A: I think it’s a privilege and an honor to have a father that overcame so much adversity in such a tough area like this is, especially with the media and stuff like that, to accomplish the things that he did from a small town in Kentucky. And to have raised us the way that he did. … Yeah, there’s definitely some good times, and then there’s also some bad times as well. High school was definitely not easy for me, being a young guy … not really sure why I was getting abused the way I was abused like verbally, for my dad just being a good football player. Or my brother playing for the Tampa Bay Bucs at the time. That was definitely tough at times, especially when my brother got hurt when he ruptured his spleen. There were teams doing chants during the games about that. So at times it was difficult. But at the same time, I’m extremely grateful to have a family that I have. And it just so happens that we all play the same sport.