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Phillip Martin Simms (born November 3, 1954) is a former American football quarterback who spent his entire 14-year professional career playing for the New York Giants of the National Football League (NFL). He is currently a television sportscaster for the CBS network. After playing college football at Morehead State University, Simms was drafted in the first round by the New York Giants of the National Football League (NFL) with the number seven selection overall in the 1979 NFL Draft. Simms was named Most Valuable Player (MVP) of Super Bowl XXI, after he led the Giants to a 39–20 victory over the Denver Broncos and set the record for highest completion percentage in a Super Bowl, completing 22 of 25 passes (88%). He also was named to the Pro Bowl for his performances in the 1985 and 1993 seasons.
He finished his career with 33,462 passing yards and has since gone on to be a career broadcaster of NFL games—first as an analyst for ESPN, then as a in-game color commentator with NBC, and currently with CBS. He is the father of former NFL quarterback, assistant coach, and current college football analyst Chris Simms, as well as NFL quarterback Matt Simms.
Super Bowl XXI
On January 25, 1987, the Giants met the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXI. In the biggest game of his life, Simms had one of the finest performances in Super Bowl history. He completed 22 of 25 passes (with 2 of his 3 in-completions being drops by receivers) for 268 yards, setting Super Bowl records for consecutive completions (10), accuracy (88%), and passer rating (150.9). In addition, he threw 3 touchdown passes and his passer rating set an NFL postseason record. “This might be the best game a quarterback has ever played”, Giants coach Bill Parcells later said. Two of the most famous plays from the game were the flea flicker to McConkey, and the touchdown pass caught by McConkey off of the fingertips of Giants tight end The Giants defeated the Broncos 39-20, and Simms was named MVP of Super Bowl XXI. He is credited for being the first to use the phrase “I’m going to Disney World!” following a championship victory.
Later career: 1987–1993
Simms performed well in the strike-shortened , finishing with the second highest quarterback rating in the NFC. He threw for 2,230 yards, 17 touchdowns, and 9 interceptions. He passed for 3,359 yard, 21 touchdowns, and 11 interceptions while completing 54.9% of his passes in the 1988 season. The Giants rebounded from a 6–9 record in 1987 to finish 10–6 but fell just short of the playoffs due to the NFL tie-breaker system. In 1989, the Giants started 8–1 and finished 12–4, Simms passed for 3,061 yards, 14 touchdowns, and 14 interceptions on 56.3% completion percentage. He performed consistently most of the season except for a two-game stretch against the Eagles and 49ers where he produced seven turnovers, six of which resulted in points for the opposition. He also struggled in the Giants playoff game against the Los Angeles Rams, and the Giants lost 19–13. In 1990, Simms was having one of his finest seasons, leading the NFC with the highest quarterback rating (92.7) and the Giants to an 11–3 record. But his season was cut short due to a broken foot suffered in the fifteenth game against the Giants’ eventual Super Bowl XXV opponent, the Buffalo Bills. The Giants went on to defeat the Bills 20–19 in the Super Bowl with Jeff Hostetler filling in at quarterback.
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After the Giants’ Super Bowl victory, Parcells resigned and was replaced by the team’s running backs coach Ray Handley. One of Handley’s first decisions was to select Jeff Hostetler as the team’s starting quarterback following his performance in Super Bowl XXV. Simms saw only spot action in two games prior to Week 13, when Hostetler broke his back in a game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Simms finished the game and reclaimed the starting job, but won only once in his remaining four starts as the Giants failed to return to the playoffs at 8-8. Simms was named starter for the 1992 season after beating out Hostetler, whom Handley still thought highly of as a quarterback in the preseason. However, Simms suffered a severe arm injury in a Week 4 loss to the Los Angeles Raiders and missed the remainder of the season. In those two seasons Simms amassed only a combined 1,905 yards, 13 touchdowns, and 7 interceptions while completing 59.3% of his passes. The Giants finished the 1992 season at 6-10, which led to the termination of the unpopular Handley and the hiring of former Denver Broncos coach Dan Reeves. As part of an overall house cleaning, Reeves released Hostetler and named Simms his starting quarterback. He started all 16 games in 1993, being one of only seven quarterbacks to do so, and led the Giants to a resurgent 11–5 season including a victory over the Minnesota Vikings in the playoffs. However, Simms underwent shoulder surgery after the 1993 NFL Season to repair a torn labium. The surgery was successful, and team doctor Russell F. Warren’s prognosis for recovery was excellent, and Simms was expected to be ready in time for training camp. However, later during that off-season, Simms was released by the Giants, and subsequently decided to retire. Upon his release, co-owner Wellington Mara called it “a day of overwhelming sadness.”. Phil Simms considered playing for the Browns in 1995, but eventually decided to stay retired.
In his 14 seasons with the Giants, Simms completed 2,576 out of 4,647 passes for 33,462 yards and 199 touchdowns. His career passing yardage total ranks him at thirty first in NFL history. He added 349 carries for 1,252 rushing yards and 6 touchdowns on the ground. He set team records for most passes completed and attempted in one game (40 and 62, respectively), season (286, 533) and career (2,576, 4,647), most career touchdown passes (199) and most 300-yard games in a career (21). Simms still owns some of the New York Giants passing records, although Eli Manning, who is in his thirteenth year with the Giants as of the 2016 season, has started to surpass some of them: season passes (359 completed, 589 attempted), career completed passes (2,679), career touchdowns (216), career 300-yard games (26). Sports Illustrated considered Simms to be the “Most Underrated Quarterback” in NFL history in their August 27, 2001 issue entitled, “The Most Overrated and Underrated”.
After retirement from the NFL
On September 4, 1995, Simms’ jersey was retired in a halftime ceremony of a game versus the Dallas Cowboys. During an emotional speech, Simms stated that he wanted to don his jersey one final time, and throw “one more pass” to teammate Lawrence Taylor Simms later commented, “[a]ll of a sudden it kind of hit me, I’ve put Lawrence in a really tough spot; national TV, he’s got dress shoes and a sports jacket on, and he’s had a few beers and he’s going to run down the field and I’m going to throw him a pass.” Simms then motioned for Taylor to run a longer pattern, and after 30–40 yards, threw him the pass. Taylor later stated that the situation made him more nervous than any play of his career, “I’m saying to myself (as the pass is being thrown), ‘If I drop this pass, I got to run my black ass all the way to Upper Saddle River because there ain’t no way I’m going to be able to stay in that stadium’.” Taylor caught the pass however, and the capacity crowd in attendance cheered in approval. Since he has been retired for more than five years, Simms is eligible for selection into the Pro Football Hall of Fame; he has yet to be inducted, however.
After his retirement as a player in 1994, Simms first joined ESPN then went on to join NBC’s lead broadcast crew, teaming with Dick Enberg and Paul Maguire on that network’s coverage of Super Bowl XXX and Super Bowl XXXII. Simms also announced Weightlifting at the 1996 Summer Olympics and served as a sideline reporter on the NBA on NBC for NBC Sports. In 1998, he moved to CBS with the AFC package, teaming first with Greg Gumbel (through the end of the 2003 season) and later with Jim Nantz on the CBS’s lead broadcast team. He also worked with Armen Keteyian, Bonnie Bernstein and Lesley Visser. He hosts Inside the NFL on Showtime (another CBS holding) with James Brown and Cris Collinsworth. He has appeared on CBS Daytime since joining CBS, with a 2007 appearance as himself on the CBS soap opera As the World Turns, and in February 2010 an appearance on The Price Is Right (with Nantz) to present a Super Bowl XLIV showcase. In the same month, he appeared as himself (again with Nantz) on the How I Met Your Mother episode “Rabbit or Duck”. Simms is part of the commentary team, along with his broadcast partner Jim Nantz, in the Madden NFL 13, 15, and 16 video games.
As of the 2015–16 NFL season, Simms has been a commentator for the CBS and NFL Network broadcasts of Thursday Night Football. He was replaced by Tony Romo for the 2017-18 NFL season and moved to The NFL Today for that season.
On November 13, 2014, Simms appeared uncredited on the “Just a Regular Irregular” episode of the CBS TV series Elementary. Simms’ cameo was as a character named “Phillip” who had, like Simms himself, spent 15 years as a professional football player, but was a consultant to Sherlock Holmes in the art of knife throwing.
