Phil Simms discusses CBS departure, what's next for him
Phil Simms during his time on "The NFL Today." Credit: CBS/Mary Kouw
Phil Simms is doing just fine. More than fine.
“I’m as happy as I’ve ever been in this business,” he told Newsday on Tuesday.
But what about CBS announcing on April 29 that he would not return to “The NFL Today,” ending a 26-year run as a game and studio analyst at the network?
“Everybody goes, ‘How you doin’?’ ” he said. “I didn’t freakin’ die. I don’t know what to say sometimes. I’m fine. Don’t worry.
“It’s going to be great. It’s going to be awesome. I’m looking forward to it. It’s going to be a good change in my life.”
To be clear, leaving CBS was not Simms’ preferred outcome.
But as time went by after last season and he did not hear anything, he figured he was out as part of a revamping — and youth movement — on the show that removed Simms, 68, and Boomer Esiason, 63.
Matt Ryan, 39, a newcomer, and J.J. Watt, 35, whose role will expand, will take their seats.
“If they were going to bring me back, I would have heard within the first couple of weeks of the season being over,” Simms said. “When you don’t hear, you just go, ‘OK, I know.’ ”
The day CBS announced the changes, Esiason said he had renewed his contract as a morning co-host on WFAN. But Simms is a media free agent.
“It’s kind of exciting, because now I’m out there doing whatever,” he said. “I’m just going to have different jobs, kind of work at my own pace, which is going to be great.”
Simms said he has various possibilities for the 2024 season that he expects to finalize later this summer.
Keeping up with the NFL will not be a chore because it is what he does for fun anyway.
“I love what I do,” he said. “If I have free time even now, like if there’s a two-hour window in the afternoon for some reason and I’m not doing something, I’m going to go up and sit at my desk and write stuff about NFL football.”
He said he is looking forward to watching games at home on some Sundays. But he will need a new setup after years of watching every game on “The NFL Today” set.
“I’ll have one big TV and maybe get two small ones, or four,” he said. “I’m getting a lot of ideas. But I’m definitely going to have more than one TV sitting in front of me.”
Simms largely has given up basketball, golf, tennis and other sports in an effort to preserve the relatively good health he has for an aging former NFL player.
He said the Giants’ shocking decision to release him as their quarterback after a successful 1993 season might have been a blessing in disguise because it saved him from more wear and tear.
“I don’t play pickleball,” he said. “People say, ‘Why aren’t you playing pickleball? It looks great!’ To me, it’s just another injury waiting to happen.”
Still, Simms is plenty active. He frequently works on passing with young quarterbacks, alone or with his son Matt, a former Jets quarterback.
He had an 8 a.m. appointment Wednesday with a rising high school freshman.
“I love doing it,” he said. “If I could make a full-time living just doing that, that’d be awesome, but I’m not making money off of it, that’s for sure. It’s kind of hard to explain. But it’s pretty cool.”
Simms also stays busy as a grandfather of seven. He said he took two Wiffle balls to the face in a backyard game with two young grandchildren on Tuesday.
As for media, Simms’ passion now is the podcast he does with Matt, called “Simms Complete.”
“I never thought I would say this: I don’t like doing it; I love doing it,” he said. “I can get information out that I never probably got out before, and it’s fun doing it with my young son.
“He’s very quick-witted. Picks on his dad a little too much. I just love doing it.”
After 14 seasons with the Giants during which he was MVP of Super Bowl XXI, Simms worked for ESPN, NBC and finally CBS, first as a game analyst starting in 1998, then in the studio when Tony Romo was signed to succeed him in 2017.
“Phil and Boomer set the standard of excellence for NFL analysts,” CBS Sports president David Berson said in announcing the studio shake-up.
Simms said that since April, many people have noted what a good run he had at CBS.
“I just say, ‘Yeah, but it ended,’ ” he said. “Yeah, it was a great run, I guess. I’m very appreciative of everything and all that. But I don’t think, however long it lasted in my life, that I was probably going to be happy when it was over.”
But he is happy with what he is doing now — and planning for what he will do next.
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.