John Elway Confirms They’ll Franchise S Justin Simmons If They Can’t Sign Him Long Term

On Tuesday, Broncos executive VP John Elway told reporters at the Combine that they will franchise S Justin Simmons if they’re unable to get a long-term deal in place, per Ryan O’Halloran. 

Simmons said in an interview with Sirius XM NFL Radio on Monday that he is preparing to be franchised by the team this offseason, so this shouldn’t come as a big surprise. 

“We expect to get franchise tagged,” Simmons said. “We’re kind of sitting on the optimistic side of things just because in the past when the Broncos have used the tag, and [John] Elway has used it, they’ve always worked out a long-term deal. We’re pretty confident we’ll be able to work something out. Just excited, learning to appreciate the process and enjoy it.”

Simmons remains optimistic that he will eventually sign a long term deal with the Broncos. However, he’s still unsure of whether he would report to offseason workouts if tagged.

“I’ve always been the type of guy that consistently bet on myself,” Simmons said. “Out of high school, felt like I was under-recruited. Even coming out of Boston College, an under-the-radar type of guy. Even now, even though we feel like obviously we deserve to be paid in a long-term contract, and that is still an opportunity to be doing so, if we are under the franchise tag, just another opportunity to present itself to kind of cement that we’re always confident in what we can do and things of that nature. We’ll see how it all plays out. If we do get franchised, there’s still the opportunity of working out a long-term deal, which has been done in the past with Elway and the Broncos, but we’ll just have to sit back and wait and see.”

Simmons, 26, is a former a third-round pick of the Broncos out of Boston College back in 2016. He played out the final year of his four-year, $3.02 million rookie contract that included a $645,420 signing bonus.

Simmons is now in line to test the open market as an unrestricted free agent for the first time in his NFL career. 

In 2019, Simmons started all 16 games and recorded 93 tackles, four interceptions, and 15 pass breakups. Pro Football Focus has him rated as the No. 2 safety out of 82 qualifying players.

We have him included in our Top 100 – 2020 Free Agents list.