by Jeremy Hawkes, Sun Devil Media Relations
Jason Simmons didn't talk much at Arizona State. A fitting trait for a cornerback, the hallmark of the position typically being someone that does their job so well that you don't have to talk about them.
He would let others do the talking. But when you watched him play, you knew he was good.
At a fairly diminutive 5-foot-9, Simmons didn't wow anyone with his size. But he had those long arms that you can't coach in a corner, an incredible football savvy, and the penchant for the big play.
Simmons made a career for himself as grinder, a guy that buckled up the chin strap and went to work. He was never an All-American. He was never a First-Team All-Conference selection. He was never a heralded draft prospect.
And yet, he spent a decade as a player in the NFL – no small feat by anyone's standards. And beyond that, he's added another decade in the league as a coach.
Jason Simmons has carved out a career for himself not by being a guy that did the talking, but by being the guy that simply just got it done.
That mindset began during his time in Tempe, where he credits an exceptional cast of coaching figures for showing him the way to do it right. From Bruce Snyder to Rod Marinelli to Phil Snow to Donnie Henderson, Simmons was surrounded by a glutton of talented defensive minds that paved the way for him both as a player and as a coach.
His team-first mindset began before he even donned the Maroon and Gold jersey for the first time, when head coach Bruce Snyder brought every prospect – regardless of position - from the 1994 signing class to town on one single recruiting visit.
"We bonded. For a group of guys that was supposed to be competing against each other, we bonded and we said, 'Let's all come. Let's take this to the next level. Let's see what we can do.'," Simmons remembers about the trip. "That class I came in with, we felt like we were a part of changing the culture."
That class took its lumps as freshmen in 1994, struggling through a 3-8 campaign that Simmons notes he and his fellow teammates vowed to "never let happen again".
That group never got away from themselves and bought into Coach Snyder's emphasis on caring about each other as teammates and playing as one cohesive unit.
"He took pride in bringing you into his own home. You saw firsthand who he was as a man and as a family man," Simmons said. "He conveyed that to us from a football standpoint. We are a family and we're an extension of his family."
Simmons notes that Snyder was firm, but he was fair and he cared about his staff and his players, an effect that trickled down through the program. Everyone was treated the same. They were one.
The 1996 and 1997 seasons saw Simmons pacing one of the elite secondaries in the Pac-10. His senior campaign was especially exemplary. Only three teams completed more than 50 percent of their pass attempts against the Sun Devils and six were held under 200 yards passing on the year. Against the Pac-10, ASU limited the best passing conference in the nation (the top three teams in the country in passing efficiency were all in the Pac-10) to 127-of-274 (.464) in the air while picking 14 passes.
It was a successful season for Simmons and his defensive compatriots, one that saw him earn second-team All-Pac-10 honors and put his mind in a good place as No. 10 took the field for the final time alongside his fellow captains at the 1997 Rose Bowl.
"It was special being there with the guys I had such a strong relationship with. (Fellow captain) Damien Richardson was my roommate. Playing alongside Pat. It was just special," Simmons remembers. "I felt like everybody deserved to be there. It wasn't one of those things where it was paper captains. It was a culmination of how hard we worked."
But Simmons and his secondary would still have one more test ahead of them against an Iowa offense ranked 13th in the country in passing efficiency, ninth in scoring and 17th in total offense.
Simmons, himself, would have the most important role of all – stopping Tim Dwight.
The senior All-American and Iowa's all-time leading receiver at that time had just finished seventh in the Heisman Trophy voting.
So, as he had all season, Simmons - ASU's top cover corner - would line up against the most dynamic player on the field and was tasked with keeping him in check.
However, Dwight was also one of the most electric return specialists in the history of college football. He averaged 19 yards per punt return that season – three more yards than any other player in the country - with three touchdowns. In one game, Northwestern even chose to punt the ball on third down just to avoid kicking it to him.
So, Bruce Snyder also charged Simmons to be a gunner on special teams and take care of Dwight on punt returns, also.
"He said, 'Well, if you're going to go guard him on defense, why don't you go tackle him on punt?'," Simmons snickers. "So that was just the down before first down. Go tackle him on punt, get up, and now I've got to guard him."
Oh, and as if that all wasn't enough, he was going to need to play quarterback as well.
The Sun Devils had lost freshman All-American quarterback Ryan Kealy in the final game of the season against Arizona. Steve Campbell was making his first career start and, at 6-foot-7, didn't offer as much versatility in the run game. So Snyder installed a passage where Simmons would line up at quarterback to keep the Iowa defense off-balance. You could say it was the original "Sparky" package.
Simmons answered every call. Tim Dwight finished the game with a grand total of 16 yards on four punt returns. He had a pedestrian three catches for 51 yards while Simmons broke up two passes and recorded four tackles. Simmons had two rushes for seven yards and set up a Robert Nycz field goal attempt to cap off the first half. The Sun Devils held Iowa to a paltry 209 yards of total offense and Simmons left his legacy at ASU as a winner.
More telling, perhaps, was that the game showed the extent to which Bruce Snyder trusted Simmons to do whatever it would take to will his team to victory - even if it meant playing in all three phases of the game.
Several months later, Simmons would hear his name called in the fifth round of the 1997 NFL Draft with the 137th pick by the Pittsburgh Steelers. His prowess on special teams in that Sun Bowl game foreshadowed the early years of his career, as he spent the first four seasons of his career as a standout player on the Steelers' special team units. It perfectly encapsulated his career of doing whatever he was needed to do to selflessly help his team.
His efforts did not go unnoticed, as he would go on to sign with the expansion Houston Texans in 2002 where he developed into a serviceable two-deep player in the secondary for the remaining six years of his career until 2007.
He appeared at every position in the secondary throughout his career in the NFL, fearlessly contributing on special teams on his way to 121 career appearances. Even beyond his selfless nature to his teams, he was selfless as a person as well.
In his final season in the league in 2007, the Texans signed Ahman Green from the Packers. Green had spent his career wearing No. 30, the number that Simmons had worn since the birth of the Texans in 2002. Green was willing to pay Simmons to part with the number but Simmons didn't want his money. He made another deal.
Simmons wanted to use the proceeds from the jersey switch to benefit a deserving single parent in the Houston area. Green and Simmons combined to donate $25,000 while Texans owner Bob McNair matched the tally and the group presented Regina Foster with $50,000 towards a purchase for a new home. Foster was a single parent raising her 7-year-old son Reggie, who had been diagnosed with severe autism.
"I don't want to overstate what we did," Simmons said at the time, "but it could really affect their future for the long haul. That's touching."
Like his professional playing career, Simmons' professional coaching career started from humble means. He was an administrative assistant for the Packers for four seasons from 2011-14, where he worked with the defensive coaching staff to collect and analyze weekly production statistics, as well as assisting the defensive units in practice.
But he worked his way up, earning his first coaching position with the Packers as an assistant special team's coach from 2014-17 before being promoted to the secondary and defensive backs coach from 2018-19.
Coaching has been fulfilling for Simmons, allowing him to give back to the sport that gave him so much. His ability to be able to relate to the players is one thing but he credits his success as a coach to the ones that coached him before, especially at his time at Arizona State.
"When I look back at my success, I look at the type of coaching I was receiving," Simmons said. "The one thing that (former ASU assistant head coach and eventual NFL head coach) Rod Marinelli taught me was, 'Know the man before you coach the man.' All anybody ever wants to be is respected."
Simmons' professional playing and coaching success have come alongside raising three children – all of which will be attending college this Fall. The youngest of those will be carrying her father's legacy at Arizona State as Jaddan Simmons will be a freshman on Charli Turner Thorne's women's basketball team for the 2020-21 campaign.
"It's been good, but it's been challenging because I truly take pride in being a dad," Simmons said. "You've got to prioritize your time and I'm thankful for my wife for helping me, but we've been blessed with three of them and to have three in college, I'm proud of that."
Simmons will enter his 20th year of experience within the NFL this Fall after being named the defensive passing game coordinator and secondary coach for the Carolina Panthers - a position that reunites him with his defensive coordinator at ASU, Phil Snow.
"This is my 20th year in the National Football League and he's still coaching me hard," Simmons laughs. "The fun part is, I'm still learning from him. I have not elevated at all. I am still the mentee."
Things have come full circle for Jason Simmons, who – like his fellow 1997 captains – made a career of doing the right thing and what was best for himself at any given time. He never needed to say much, never needed to be in the limelight. But it all led to where he is now – with two decades worth of experience at the highest level of football.
As he looks back on his lifetime of success as a professional player and coach, as a father and as a man of principle, he can't help but be thankful for the way it began at Arizona State.
"Regardless of how many years you play in the National Football League, your foundation – as a man – is built in college."
Jason Simmons didn't talk much at Arizona State. A fitting trait for a cornerback, the hallmark of the position typically being someone that does their job so well that you don't have to talk about them.
He would let others do the talking. But when you watched him play, you knew he was good.
At a fairly diminutive 5-foot-9, Simmons didn't wow anyone with his size. But he had those long arms that you can't coach in a corner, an incredible football savvy, and the penchant for the big play.
Simmons made a career for himself as grinder, a guy that buckled up the chin strap and went to work. He was never an All-American. He was never a First-Team All-Conference selection. He was never a heralded draft prospect.
And yet, he spent a decade as a player in the NFL – no small feat by anyone's standards. And beyond that, he's added another decade in the league as a coach.
Jason Simmons has carved out a career for himself not by being a guy that did the talking, but by being the guy that simply just got it done.
That mindset began during his time in Tempe, where he credits an exceptional cast of coaching figures for showing him the way to do it right. From Bruce Snyder to Rod Marinelli to Phil Snow to Donnie Henderson, Simmons was surrounded by a glutton of talented defensive minds that paved the way for him both as a player and as a coach.
His team-first mindset began before he even donned the Maroon and Gold jersey for the first time, when head coach Bruce Snyder brought every prospect – regardless of position - from the 1994 signing class to town on one single recruiting visit.
"We bonded. For a group of guys that was supposed to be competing against each other, we bonded and we said, 'Let's all come. Let's take this to the next level. Let's see what we can do.'," Simmons remembers about the trip. "That class I came in with, we felt like we were a part of changing the culture."
That class took its lumps as freshmen in 1994, struggling through a 3-8 campaign that Simmons notes he and his fellow teammates vowed to "never let happen again".
That group never got away from themselves and bought into Coach Snyder's emphasis on caring about each other as teammates and playing as one cohesive unit.
"He took pride in bringing you into his own home. You saw firsthand who he was as a man and as a family man," Simmons said. "He conveyed that to us from a football standpoint. We are a family and we're an extension of his family."
Simmons notes that Snyder was firm, but he was fair and he cared about his staff and his players, an effect that trickled down through the program. Everyone was treated the same. They were one.
The 1996 and 1997 seasons saw Simmons pacing one of the elite secondaries in the Pac-10. His senior campaign was especially exemplary. Only three teams completed more than 50 percent of their pass attempts against the Sun Devils and six were held under 200 yards passing on the year. Against the Pac-10, ASU limited the best passing conference in the nation (the top three teams in the country in passing efficiency were all in the Pac-10) to 127-of-274 (.464) in the air while picking 14 passes.
It was a successful season for Simmons and his defensive compatriots, one that saw him earn second-team All-Pac-10 honors and put his mind in a good place as No. 10 took the field for the final time alongside his fellow captains at the 1997 Rose Bowl.
"It was special being there with the guys I had such a strong relationship with. (Fellow captain) Damien Richardson was my roommate. Playing alongside Pat. It was just special," Simmons remembers. "I felt like everybody deserved to be there. It wasn't one of those things where it was paper captains. It was a culmination of how hard we worked."
But Simmons and his secondary would still have one more test ahead of them against an Iowa offense ranked 13th in the country in passing efficiency, ninth in scoring and 17th in total offense.
Simmons, himself, would have the most important role of all – stopping Tim Dwight.
The senior All-American and Iowa's all-time leading receiver at that time had just finished seventh in the Heisman Trophy voting.
So, as he had all season, Simmons - ASU's top cover corner - would line up against the most dynamic player on the field and was tasked with keeping him in check.
However, Dwight was also one of the most electric return specialists in the history of college football. He averaged 19 yards per punt return that season – three more yards than any other player in the country - with three touchdowns. In one game, Northwestern even chose to punt the ball on third down just to avoid kicking it to him.
So, Bruce Snyder also charged Simmons to be a gunner on special teams and take care of Dwight on punt returns, also.
"He said, 'Well, if you're going to go guard him on defense, why don't you go tackle him on punt?'," Simmons snickers. "So that was just the down before first down. Go tackle him on punt, get up, and now I've got to guard him."
Oh, and as if that all wasn't enough, he was going to need to play quarterback as well.
The Sun Devils had lost freshman All-American quarterback Ryan Kealy in the final game of the season against Arizona. Steve Campbell was making his first career start and, at 6-foot-7, didn't offer as much versatility in the run game. So Snyder installed a passage where Simmons would line up at quarterback to keep the Iowa defense off-balance. You could say it was the original "Sparky" package.
Simmons answered every call. Tim Dwight finished the game with a grand total of 16 yards on four punt returns. He had a pedestrian three catches for 51 yards while Simmons broke up two passes and recorded four tackles. Simmons had two rushes for seven yards and set up a Robert Nycz field goal attempt to cap off the first half. The Sun Devils held Iowa to a paltry 209 yards of total offense and Simmons left his legacy at ASU as a winner.
More telling, perhaps, was that the game showed the extent to which Bruce Snyder trusted Simmons to do whatever it would take to will his team to victory - even if it meant playing in all three phases of the game.
Several months later, Simmons would hear his name called in the fifth round of the 1997 NFL Draft with the 137th pick by the Pittsburgh Steelers. His prowess on special teams in that Sun Bowl game foreshadowed the early years of his career, as he spent the first four seasons of his career as a standout player on the Steelers' special team units. It perfectly encapsulated his career of doing whatever he was needed to do to selflessly help his team.
His efforts did not go unnoticed, as he would go on to sign with the expansion Houston Texans in 2002 where he developed into a serviceable two-deep player in the secondary for the remaining six years of his career until 2007.
He appeared at every position in the secondary throughout his career in the NFL, fearlessly contributing on special teams on his way to 121 career appearances. Even beyond his selfless nature to his teams, he was selfless as a person as well.
In his final season in the league in 2007, the Texans signed Ahman Green from the Packers. Green had spent his career wearing No. 30, the number that Simmons had worn since the birth of the Texans in 2002. Green was willing to pay Simmons to part with the number but Simmons didn't want his money. He made another deal.
Simmons wanted to use the proceeds from the jersey switch to benefit a deserving single parent in the Houston area. Green and Simmons combined to donate $25,000 while Texans owner Bob McNair matched the tally and the group presented Regina Foster with $50,000 towards a purchase for a new home. Foster was a single parent raising her 7-year-old son Reggie, who had been diagnosed with severe autism.
"I don't want to overstate what we did," Simmons said at the time, "but it could really affect their future for the long haul. That's touching."
Like his professional playing career, Simmons' professional coaching career started from humble means. He was an administrative assistant for the Packers for four seasons from 2011-14, where he worked with the defensive coaching staff to collect and analyze weekly production statistics, as well as assisting the defensive units in practice.
But he worked his way up, earning his first coaching position with the Packers as an assistant special team's coach from 2014-17 before being promoted to the secondary and defensive backs coach from 2018-19.
Coaching has been fulfilling for Simmons, allowing him to give back to the sport that gave him so much. His ability to be able to relate to the players is one thing but he credits his success as a coach to the ones that coached him before, especially at his time at Arizona State.
"When I look back at my success, I look at the type of coaching I was receiving," Simmons said. "The one thing that (former ASU assistant head coach and eventual NFL head coach) Rod Marinelli taught me was, 'Know the man before you coach the man.' All anybody ever wants to be is respected."
Simmons' professional playing and coaching success have come alongside raising three children – all of which will be attending college this Fall. The youngest of those will be carrying her father's legacy at Arizona State as Jaddan Simmons will be a freshman on Charli Turner Thorne's women's basketball team for the 2020-21 campaign.
"It's been good, but it's been challenging because I truly take pride in being a dad," Simmons said. "You've got to prioritize your time and I'm thankful for my wife for helping me, but we've been blessed with three of them and to have three in college, I'm proud of that."
Simmons will enter his 20th year of experience within the NFL this Fall after being named the defensive passing game coordinator and secondary coach for the Carolina Panthers - a position that reunites him with his defensive coordinator at ASU, Phil Snow.
"This is my 20th year in the National Football League and he's still coaching me hard," Simmons laughs. "The fun part is, I'm still learning from him. I have not elevated at all. I am still the mentee."
Things have come full circle for Jason Simmons, who – like his fellow 1997 captains – made a career of doing the right thing and what was best for himself at any given time. He never needed to say much, never needed to be in the limelight. But it all led to where he is now – with two decades worth of experience at the highest level of football.
As he looks back on his lifetime of success as a professional player and coach, as a father and as a man of principle, he can't help but be thankful for the way it began at Arizona State.
"Regardless of how many years you play in the National Football League, your foundation – as a man – is built in college."