Last offseason, safety Justin Simmons didn’t sign with the Falcons until Aug. 15 — midway through training camp.
Simmons is once again a free agent in 2025 after completing his one-year deal with Atlanta. And this time, he would like to sign with a team a little earlier.
“I mean, that’s always the goal,” Simmons said in an interview with Kay Adams on Tuesday. “I think — yes, there’s pros and cons to training camp. Cons [would be] going through it, your body breaking down, the whole nine — especially as you get older. But, I mean, a lot of the pros is building that rapport, especially when you’re not with the team and you haven’t necessarily played with a lot of those guys. So, I think it would’ve benefited me to go a little bit earlier. But it also just wasn’t in the cards. I think Atlanta has a great young safety in DeMarcco Hellams and I liked Richie Grant’s game a lot. So, at the time, could they have added a veteran? Yeah. Were they looking to? Maybe not. Then a couple of guys go down in camp and it’s like, ‘OK, we’ve got to add someone.’ Then your number’s called and you go.
“So, we’ll see. We’ll see. I want to go to the best situation, and I want to go to a team that’s going to win. So, we’ll see what that looks like.”
Could he go back to the Falcons? It doesn’t seem like Simmons is counting on it.
“It was a one-year thing,” Simmons said. “They like kind of their younger guys, too. Sometimes things just don’t work out and you go in different directions. I don’t know if the door’s necessarily closed. But we’ll see.”
In 16 starts for Atlanta last year, Simmons recorded 62 total tackles with seven passes defensed and two interceptions. He’s now No. 4 on the active list with 32 career picks.
Simmons is No. 51 on PFT’s list of the top 100 free agents of 2025.
