Metro

Simms’ wife sits out quarterback pot trial

She’s standing by her man — she just won’t sit for him on the witness stand.

Tennessee Titans quarterback Chris Simms surprised a Manhattan courtroom today by not calling his wife, Danielle, as a defense witness in his ongoing toking-and-driving trial, despite having promised jurors that she’d testify.

The stunning brunette, who always accompanies the hunky backup hurler to court, suddenly got cold feet, Simms’ lawyer explained.

“Mrs. Simms is his wife, and she doesn’t want to have her testimony and her picture on the front page of the New York Post or the Daily Times [sic],” the lawyer, Harvey Steinberg, told Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Mandelbaum.

“She doesn’t need to testify; she doesn’t want to testify.”

Danielle was eight months pregnant and riding shotgun in Simms’ Mercedes SUV when it was pulled over last July at a DWI checkpoint on West Houston Street. Simms is the son of Giants legend Phil Simms.

The lone prosecution witness, Officer Francisco Acosta, had told jurors Monday that Simms reeked of marijuana and acted “like a zombie.” Simms also refused a urine and coordination test, but only because he was angry at getting arrested, his lawyer insists.

Jurors had been promised by Steinberg during opening statements Monday that Danielle would take the stand on her husband’s behalf as an eyewitness, to tell them first-hand that Simms did not smoke and drive that night.

Prosecutor Alexandra Glazer insisted successfully, over defense objections, that jurors be given what’s called “missing witness” instructions by the judge, informing them that they may — though they don’t have to — infer by the defense’s failure to call Danielle that her testimony would not have benefited the defense.

Jurors wound up left with testimony by another eyewitness — one of the two guys in the Mercedes’ back seat that night: Simms’ high-school football pal Charlie Granatell, a marketing exec from Bergen County, NJ, who told jurors it was he, not Simms, who sparked up a joint.

“Who lit it up?” asked the defense lawyer.

“Me,” answered Granatell.

“And did you smell?” the lawyer asked.

“Yes,” the witness answered sheepishly.

According to testimony by another defense witness, club owner and real-estate investor Noel Ashman, Simms had pulled over outside Nobu on West 57th Street to run inside and say hello to Ashman, who was hosting a birthday party with a dozen well-heeled well-wishers, including celebrity private investigator Bo Dietle and Ethan Browne, the actor son of singer-songwriter Jackson Browne.

Granatell insisted he’d never seen Simms smoke pot, and that when Simms came back to his car after 20 minutes inside Nobu, he was “definitely annoyed” to find that Granatell was high and his car reeked.

Jurors are expected to begin deliberations after closing arguments tomorrow morning.

laura.italiano@nypost.com