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Have you ever looked up at the stars and wondered what the Broncos' offense would look like with a truly dangerous YAC threat and field stretcher? Or have you just started pondering how good Jeffery Simmons could be in a true one-gapping role? I sure have. And in a few months, I won’t have to wonder any longer.
Today's NFL has more offseason movement than ever, and with that movement comes an abundance of new coach-player pairings. Half of the league has a new offensive playcaller this year, which in turn puts many incumbent playmakers in reimagined roles. Bigger names are traded more willingly as the salary cap balloons upward, which allows near-contenders to handpick the perfect missing players to push their teams over the edge.
I highlighted eight new coach-player pairings across the league that I'm excited to see in 2026. There are truly hundreds to choose from, and many interesting duos didn’t make this cut. (How will Sean Mannion use DeVonta Smith in A.J. Brown’s absence? How will Kenneth Walker III change how Andy Reid calls the Chiefs’ offense?) But these are the eight that I think have the most potential — and also the most mystery.
Jump to:
Payton-Waddle | Daboll-Ward
O’Connell-Murray | Shanahan-Evans
Shula-Garrett | McDaniel-Hampton
Kubiak-Bowers | Saleh-Simmons
Broncos coach Sean Payton and WR Jaylen Waddle
No, Payton is no longer calling the plays in Denver. Yes, I'm still excited to see Waddle in what is largely still Payton's offense.
In Denver's two years with Bo Nix at quarterback, the Broncos had an acceptable receiver room. Veteran Courtland Sutton is an average WR1, and various rookie contract players (Marvin Mims Jr., Troy Franklin, Pat Bryant, Devaughn Vele) have had their days in the sun. Payton has always kept a deep receiver room with a variety of body types, not to mention a similarly deep tight end group that bites into the total receiver snaps available.
With that deep room comes distributed production. Payton has been the head coach of an NFL team for 17 seasons — 14 in New Orleans and three more in Denver. Only once has he had a receiver account for more than 30% of the team's targets (something that happened on four teams last season), and only twice has a receiver accounted for more than 30% of the team's receiving yards (eight teams last season).
The league is increasingly moving toward more consolidated receiver rooms, as coaches become better at funneling high-quality looks to their star receivers. As an example, we could highlight the prime Mike McDaniel Dolphins, who were force-feeding their two star receivers: Tyreek Hill and Waddle. Across 2022 and 2023, Hill led all receivers with 37.1% of the team’s receiving yards — an enormous number. But Waddle was 22nd at 25.0%, the highest that any teammate ranked. That 25.0% is about the market share Sutton has had as the Broncos’ WR1 in the past two seasons.
With Sutton and Waddle sharing the field and bringing different skill sets, the Broncos can become a little more star-dependent with their distribution of receiver touches. Payton's surprising surrender of playcalling to new offensive coordinator Davis Webb is another sign that the Broncos want to narrow their receiver rotation and target shares. But even if Waddle carries only 20% of that production, it’s that different skill set he provides that is most exciting.
In Nix's career so far, Denver has had a bit of a zone-coverage issue. Among 35 qualified quarterbacks, Nix is 31st in dropback success rate against zone coverage and 11th against man coverage — an enormous difference. Every major quarterbacking metric takes a big hit when Nix faces zone defense.
Against zone looks, Nix has generally been asked to throw to big-bodied receivers, as incumbent quicksters Mims and Franklin don't have the trustworthy hands and toughness necessary to earn routes over the middle of the field. This isn't great for Nix, who much prefers to air out deep vertical throws than drive throws into rapidly closing windows on deep-breaking routes. Waddle gives the Broncos a far more legitimate threat to blow by a safety, which doesn't just give Nix his preferred answer against zone coverages but also stretches out those coverages, making the tight intermediate windows a little bigger for other WRs.
Waddle also has plenty of experience on quick-breaking routes over the middle of the field from his time in Miami. These routes were sight-adjusted and settled in voids, making them easy answers against zone coverage for a quarterback in Tua Tagovailoa who, like Nix, wasn’t the best at drilling accurate lasers between zone defenders. If Waddle can earn Nix’s trust quickly, that pair can start accessing those anticipation throws that are, at their best, nearly indefensible.
We haven't even talked about wide receiver screens, of which Nix has thrown more than any quarterback, save for Caleb Williams, since he entered the league. With Mims specifically, Denver has experimented with WR-in-the-backfield formations that easily break defensive rules and create free explosives. Payton is so stupendously good at his job that it’s easy to see the Waddle trade as a high-floor/high-ceiling move. At worst, he makes the existing Mims and Franklin roles more dangerous. At best, he brings such a radical dimension to the offense that it alleviates some of the coverage problems.
Titans OC Brian Daboll and QB Cam Ward
Watching Ward's rookie season reminded me a lot of watching Caleb Williams' rookie season. In both cases, it was mightily difficult to see the forest through the trees. There were dysfunctional supporting casts, poor scheming and impossible score deficits. Superhero-minded quarterbacks developed bad habits as they tried to big-play their teams to improbable victories. But in both cases, the flashes were bright enough and frequent enough. I remained a strong believer in Williams before his second season, and I remain one for Ward.
Ward can sling it. He'll need to tidy up his lower-body mechanics as he plays in an offense with more timing, and he can make easy throws harder by unnecessarily changing his arm slot. But that arm is live, and it allows him to read coverages post-snap and get away with being a little late as he learns to process at NFL speeds. His combination of release speed and ball velocity is going to create explosive plays in this league for a long time.
Now, Williams got Ben Johnson to turn around his career — and I'd rank Johnson near the Sean McVay/Kyle Shanahan tier of playcalling. Ward got Daboll, who is obviously not that caliber. But Daboll has done good things (helped develop Josh Allen, got splashy play out of Daniel Jones, got another splashy season out of Jaxson Dart).
Those splashy seasons in particular stand out. Daboll has used the quarterback running game to diversify his offense and play 11-on-11 football, not just with Jones and Dart but even in instances of desperation (remember Tommy DeVito?). Ward had only nine designed runs in the 2025 season, eight of which came after Brian Callahan was fired. He clearly wasn’t being coached to run as a rookie, with a scramble rate of 3.7% — well below the league average of 5.4%.
Daboll is going to change that. Ward has a thick body that's tough to drag down, and though he isn't particularly sudden, he can win a race to the corner and keep the offense ahead of schedule. He shouldn't necessarily start scrambling at Dart rates (a whopping 9.2%), but given how often Jones (7.5%) and Allen (7.3%) scrambled under Daboll, we can say with some confidence that Daboll wants his quarterbacks to tuck and run.
Some of this is also structural. Daboll's offenses rely heavily on shotgun alignments, RPOs and spread formations. Such offenses invite high scramble rates, and Daboll would do well to evolve his offense to more modern approaches from under center with condensed formations. It would certainly help his QB get hit less.
But that offensive structure also really suits Ward well at this stage in his career. The spread and the shotgun will allow him to utilize that zippy release from weird platforms. Where more robotic quarterbacks would struggle, Ward can flourish. With better receiver play — which the Titans expect to get from Wan’Dale Robinson (who followed Daboll from New York) and Carnell Tate — those quick targets will be a lot more fruitful.
Daboll's offense will be a shot in the arm for Ward, who needs something (anything) new and creative after the listless offense he was handed last season. Daboll's ability to sustain that initial jolt is in question, and Ward's development under Daboll is accordingly not guaranteed. But just for 2026, I'm confident in a big statistical jump from Ward, and I'm excited to see what this pairing draws out.
Vikings coach Kevin O'Connell and QB Kyler Murray
There's an idea out there that Murray is not a good fit in O'Connell's offense. It's half right.
O'Connell's offense, as we know it, has been built around pocket passers. He was the offensive coordinator under McVay in 2020 and 2021, which was the end of the Jared Goff era and beginning of the Matthew Stafford era. From there, he joined Minnesota, where he coached Kirk Cousins and Sam Darnold. These offenses have been unsurprisingly similar given the shared archetypes: big frames, talented arms and a willingness to throw over the middle of the field.
This is not Murray. Like most shorter quarterbacks, Murray prefers to play from the shotgun and sink deep into the pocket during his dropbacks (it helps him see the entire field). To this point in his career, Murray has largely avoided throwing to the intermediate middle — which the McVay/O'Connell offenses tends to feature — in large part because shorter QBs struggle to see those throwing windows and get the ball up and over the first level of the defense. Across the past five seasons, Murray is 36th among 40 high-volume quarterbacks in the percentage of throws going 10-20 yards downfield and between the numbers. Cousins is eighth, Stafford is 10th, Goff is 11th and Darnold is 13th.
In this way, Murray is a poor fit for O'Connell's offense. But O'Connell's offense is not a static thing. Over his seasons as the Vikings' head coach, he has done well to put imperfect quarterbacks in strong positions to succeed. Last season, both J.J. McCarthy and Carson Wentz attempted fewer passes to the intermediate middle than any other quarterback O’Connell coached in Minnesota or Los Angeles. Wentz was under center on only 37.4% of his dropbacks, again O’Connell’s lowest mark. McCarthy threw more deep outbreaking routes than any O’Connell quarterback — the sort of routes that O’Connell will need for Murray, as they’re easier for him to see.
This isn't the first time O'Connell has done this. He got functional play out of Nick Mullens and Joshua Dobbs in 2023 after Cousins’ Achilles injury. In both instances, he didn’t throw out his entire offense but rather tweaked it to fit his spot starter. Dobbs got more bootlegs and rollouts to accentuate his mobility. Mullens got more play-action shot opportunities to lean into his inherently aggressive style of play.
O'Connell has endured a far more brutal carousel of quarterbacking quality than his fellow branches off the McVay tree, including McVay himself, Matt LaFleur and Zac Taylor. As such, we've seen him forced to innovate more desperately. I'd argue this puts him in a better position than Taylor or LaFleur might be to build a quick-fix offense around Murray's strengths and deficiencies. He has had to solve similar problems in the past.
It's easy to see how Murray doesn't fit in the O'Connell offense — he doesn't throw to the middle of the field well and doesn't hang tall in the pocket. Harder to see but perhaps more impactful is what he might do to the O'Connell offense, or in other words, what he might precipitate out of this system that has spread rapidly across the league.
Murray is without question the best running QB to start in a McVay-inspired offense. Trey Lance in San Francisco could be a comparison, but we never saw him keep that job without getting injured. Malik Willis in Green Bay is another fair comparison, and Willis was one of the league’s best backup QBs when his legs were wrinkled into LaFleur’s scheme. LaFleur has developed a highly diverse shotgun running game to replace some of the under-center formations that McVay and O’Connell still rely on. Will O’Connell crib from that playbook to include Murray zone read threats?
The ceiling in Minnesota with Murray is far, far higher than we're inclined to estimate. The most recent tastes in our mouths for O'Connell and Murray are bad ones: O'Connell couldn't develop McCarthy, and Murray couldn't grow in Arizona. But these are similar circumstances to those under which Daniel Jones and Shane Steichen joined forces in Indianapolis, and they produced truly historic offensive numbers (for a couple of months). Desperation can foster spectacular innovation in the NFL.
49ers coach Kyle Shanahan and WR Mike Evans
The tallest receiver to take a snap for a Shanahan-led offense is Rodney Smith, a 6-foot-5 undrafted free agent who ran five routes for the Browns in 2014. The tallest receivers to take significant snaps for a Shanahan-led offense are the 6-foot-3 Julio Jones, Josh Gordon and Jauan Jennings.
Jennings is a bit of a misnomer. Though tall, he did not fill the traditional role of a tall receiver. He was one of the first big slot receivers in a mold that has now proliferated across the league, as almost half of his targets (48.5%) came from the slot in his time in San Francisco. Shanahan used his large frame as an additional blocker in the running game and a post-up player on quick-breaking routes. Outside of Jennings, Shanahan has largely run his 49ers passing game through 6-footers like Deebo Samuel and Brandon Aiyuk.
That will not be the plan with Evans, who is cut from the traditional X receiver cloth that Jennings never filled. He's 6-foot-5 and 231 pounds with 35⅛-inch arms. Shanahan himself said this offseason, "I've never been around a guy that is that tall with that long of arms." And Evans will use that frame in the most obvious manner: to win jump balls in contested, red zone opportunities. Over the past three seasons, Evans is third in total receiving touchdowns on plays inside the 10-yard line. Those are all tight-window plays, too, as 52.2% of the targets have come with no separation. He's a ball winner.
But it's easy to pigeonhole Evans as a slow-footed skyscraper who is just trying to box out and win rebounds. Not so. What has made Evans such a unique and spectacular talent over his long NFL career is how well he runs routes at his size.
Across the past two seasons, during which he has contended with both his own injuries and a hampered Baker Mayfield, Evans is third in yards per route run on deep in-breaking routes — the digs and crossers around which Shanahan’s offense is built. Once he’s in that area, that huge catch radius and towering frame make for an easy target. It’s hard for closing safeties to address the catch point with physicality the way they do against smaller receivers.
We got a peek at how Evans might be deployed in the Shanahan offense in 2024 when he played for Liam Coen. In that season, Evans set a career high for the rate at which he ran routes from the slot. He also set a career high for reception rate, as he got more easy targets from those slot alignments. And he set a career high for yards per route run (2.63) in large part because of the increased catch rate. Evans had always been a far more productive player against single-high defenses (it's one-on-one outside … throw to the back-shoulder ball), but in that one year with Coen, he saw a huge spike in production against two-high defenses given the new usage.
Evans is two years older and a couple of injuries removed from that great 2024 season. But his game was never predicated on elite suddenness, and he remains functionally explosive given how quickly his big strides eat up turf. Even if Evans is physically limited, he would still remain a jump-ball specialist and introduce a new red zone and third-down threat to an always scary 49ers offense. But if he remains at the same level as he was the past two seasons, he can be a three-level receiver with a bigger catch radius than anyone Shanahan has ever called plays for. And with so many other pass-catching options (Christian McCaffrey, George Kittle, Ricky Pearsall, Christian Kirk, De’Zhaun Stribling), Evans’ volume can be managed such that he’s fresh come the postseason.
Rams DC Chris Shula and edge rusher Myles Garrett
At the end of the regular season, it seemed inevitable that Shula would get a head coaching job. The Rams' defense was the cheapest in the league last season, yet Shula had it at the top of pretty much every significant metric. The Rams were sixth in EPA per drive, seventh in EPA per play, fifth in success rate and fourth in DVOA.
I don't know what happened in the interviewing cycle. I do know what happened in the postseason. The Rams ran into some personnel issues. Their smaller, slower corners struggled to make impactful plays in man coverage — something the Panthers exploited multiple times with their big-bodied receivers. Their heavy reliance on zone coverage made them predictable to opposing coordinators. Though the pass rush did plenty to hide coverage concerns, the lack of a premier sack-getter left too many pressures unfinished. Los Angeles had only five sacks in three playoff games for a 3.9% sack rate, well down from its 7.9% rate in the regular season.
The Rams' solution to this problem was pretty obvious. General manager Les Snead fired the cannons, trading multiple first-round picks and a rising star in Jared Verse to acquire cornerback Trent McDuffie and edge rusher Myles Garrett in a pair of deals. Throw in the free agent signing of cornerback Jaylen Watson, and the intent is clear: The Rams will be able to play man coverage this season, and they will be able to get the quarterback on the ground.
This was Verse's greatest weakness as a young player. A wonderful bull rusher, Verse often demolished the pocket and created pressure but was unable to finish his rushes under control. He has a career pressure-to-sack ratio of 8.4%, which is fourth worst among all edges over the past two seasons. Garrett's recent pressure-to-sack ratio was obviously ballooned by his record-setting season, but over his career, he has a 19.3% conversion rate — more than double that of Verse.
Stephen A.: Rams are Super Bowl favorites after adding Myles Garrett
Because Verse was such a wrecking ball, Shula would wisely use him as the crasher on stunts, twists and other defensive line games. With a runway into a tackle, Verse could break pocket integrity and flush out the quarterback, where a waiting looper or blitzer could clean him up. It was Shula's way of converting Verse's pressures into team sacks, as Verse couldn't easily convert them into individual sacks. Cody Alexander of Match Quarters charted stunt rate last year and had the Rams running more defensive line games than any other team in the league by a pretty large margin.
What Shula will do with Garrett is fascinating to consider. Without question, Garrett will be given more traditional opportunities in the four-man rush than Verse. Instead of using Verse as the schematic fulcrum to create a sack elsewhere, Shula will overload the offensive line on the side opposite Garrett to create a sack opportunity for his new star rusher. But the Rams also ran stunts and games to maximize their other players (Byron Young, Kobie Turner) and open up blitz lanes. Garrett has more gravity than Verse, and Shula can use the threat of Garrett to draw double-teams and chip help away from blitz patterns and twists on the other side of the line. And of course, all that crashing and pocket-breaking that Verse did? Garrett also can do that.
How the Rams will use Garrett is an open-ended question. It will change relative to the opponent and require some experimentation throughout the season. The alignments and stunts they use in Week 1 won't be the same ones they use in Week 18, as Shula and Garrett feel out each other.
What we can say with great confidence is this: Shula is an excellent defensive coach, and Garrett is an excellent pass rusher. Independent of the process, the result will be what we all expect: a great year for both Garrett's individual production and the Rams' defense overall.
Chargers OC Mike McDaniel and RB Omarion Hampton
The NFL world is abuzz with excitement about what McDaniel might do for Justin Herbert. The whiz kid offensive coordinator is changing Herbert’s footwork to better fit the quick-throwing, RPO-heavy offense he ran in Miami. If McDaniel can get his system running with the sort of arm strength and big-play ability Herbert affords, the ceiling is the moon.
But in all that focus on the Herbert-McDaniel relationship, the potential benefits for Hampton are lost. A first-round rookie, Hampton won the starting role over Najee Harris out of camp and looked like an impact player even before Harris went down because of a torn Achilles in Week 3. Hampton was ninth among all running backs in scrimmage yards (450) across the first five weeks of the season despite being hit before the line of scrimmage on 57.6% of his carries (behind only Tyler Allgeier and Chase Brown). Of Hampton’s 314 rushing yards, 269 came after contact.
Hampton was so successful at creating dirty yardage because of how well he finishes his runs. Every Hampton run ends with a fall forward through contact, and he has a thick frame with great balance to survive glancing blows and be able to stumble for bonus yardage. At times, Hampton is too willing to duck his head and seek out contact. But the tackle-breaking acumen is impossible to ignore.
How does Hampton's physicality fold into a McDaniel offense? The first thought that springs to mind of a McDaniel running game is the smaller, faster De’Von Achane racing to the boundary. Though Hampton plays with great physicality, the Chargers’ O-line simply wasn’t built to sustain that style of play. Hampton ended the season being hit before the line of scrimmage on 52.4% of his carries, third among all backs with at least 100 carries. With Tyler Biadasz, Cole Strange and Jake Slaughter as additions, the Chargers’ line might be better in creating vertical displacement on talent alone. But the biggest change will be scheme.
McDaniel was the running game coordinator under Kyle Shanahan long before he became notorious for his cheat motions and quick passing game in Miami. Last year's Dolphins had one of the wackiest running games I've ever seen, as McDaniel used an undersized center (Aaron Brewer), a great fullback (Alec Ingold, who followed him to Los Angeles) and a ton of backfield talent to create explosive opportunities on the ground. Miami led the league in explosive run rate on RB carries, as McDaniel uses the ground game less as a jab and more as a haymaker.
This is great news for Hampton, who is plenty fast. The ankle injury sapped Hampton of his burst down the stretch, but before he was injured, Hampton hit 21.3 mph max speed on a 54-yard touchdown run against the Giants in Week 4 — that was seventh among all backs. Hampton has plenty of burst to cash the same checks that Achane was in Miami — and with his bigger frame and success through contact, he’ll quickly become a nightmare for those cornerbacks and safeties that McDaniel has forced to fit the run on the outside.
McDaniel used Achane more as a pass catcher as the years went on in Miami, and Hampton proved last season that he has soft hands and in-space ability. So we also can check that box. Hampton's worst plays last season were his whiffs in pass protection, but again, McDaniel is accustomed to hiding the back from protection responsibilities from his days with Achane.
Far be it from me to take any wind out of the Herbert sails that are blowing strong in Los Angeles these days. I simply think the salutary effect of McDaniel stepping into Greg Roman's shoes has a reach far greater than just the passing game, and Hampton's rookie season was far more promising than a cursory glance at his production would imply. This is a big-play walking in an offense built to get big plays out of the running back. Time for fireworks.
Raiders coach Klint Kubiak and TE Brock Bowers
Something very interesting played out in Jeremy Fowler's positional top 10 ranking series that we’ve seen over the past week or so. Players who were banged up last season are unsurprisingly falling a little bit, as Lamar Jackson was QB5, Lane Johnson was OT7 and Dexter Lawrence II was DT7. It makes sense. But Bowers, who injured his knee in Week 1, sat out three games in the fall as a result and eventually finished the season on IR to prioritize his health for 2026 … is TE1. Yes, over Cardinals tight end Trey McBride, who just set a single-season record for tight end receptions with 126.
That's how much respect the league has for Bowers. He regressed from his 2024 rookie campaign (112 catches, 1,194 yards) in both raw stats and rate stats, and he ended 2025 with 64 catches for 680 yards. His yards per route fell from 2.15 to 1.84. But so much was wrong with the 2025 Raiders offense that league executives didn't knock him one bit — and rightfully so. Bowers remains too explosive for most NFL safeties, let alone NFL linebackers. The ease with which he transitions to ball carrier after a catch is unlike any other tight end in the league.
Despite Bowers' eerily WR-esque ability, there's no real comparison to be forced between him and Jaxon Smith-Njigba, the star receiver who benefitted from Kubiak last season. Both can be lined up in a variety of spots and are smooth operators, but Bowers has three inches and 35 pounds on Smith-Njigba.
But there is something to be said for how well Kubiak built the plane out of Smith-Njigba. The usage rates were staggering. Smith-Njigba accounted for 44.1% of the Seahawks' total receiving yards and 35.9% of the team's targets, both of which are the highest numbers since Brandon Marshall in 2012. We're in an era of football in which targets are centralized more easily than ever before, and JSN was a perfect candidate to fill that Atlas role, given his versatility of alignments and complete route tree.
Bowers can also line up everywhere and run every route. He's a dangerous screen option given his tackle-breaking ability. He's a downfield threat given his strength adjusting to the football. He can't stretch the field as well as Smith-Njigba, but in a play-action heavy offense, he can still get a solid menu of shot plays from tight end alignments.
The largest market share a tight end has ever had was in 2009, when Tony Gonzalez saw 28.9% of the Chiefs' targets. One season previous, Gonzalez had 33.2% of the Chiefs' receiving yards, which is the highest such mark for a tight end. We've seen recent players get close to these numbers (2024 Trey McBride had 29.7% of the Cardinals' receiving yards and 28.4% of their targets), but nobody has eclipsed them in almost 20 years.
Given the unspectacular nature of the Raiders' wide receiver room (Tre Tucker, Jalen Nailor, Jack Bech, Dont’e Thornton Jr.), it’s fair to call Bowers the lone star of the Raiders’ passing attack. Given Kubiak’s willingness to feed his lone star nearly unprecedented volume, it stands to reason that Bowers is about to see a huge uptick in total opportunities. If Kubiak is who we think he is as a play designer, those opportunities will be high quality.
In my bold predictions column from a few weeks ago, I named Bowers as a good pick for Offensive Player of the Year — an award never won by a tight end. If he is as central to the Raiders’ passing attack as I expect, then he has the talent to break all of the precedents set for how we understand receiving tight ends in the modern NFL.
Titans coach Robert Saleh and DT Jeffery Simmons
If I were a defensive tackle, I would want to play for Saleh.
His first stint as a defensive coordinator was from 2017 to 2020 with the 49ers. There, DeForest Buckner made his first Pro Bowl in 2018 and his first All-Pro list in 2019. Arik Armstead, an inside-out tweener, found success in Saleh’s attack-oriented fronts. D.J. Jones, a 2017 sixth-round pick, developed into the great nose tackle he remains today.
Then Saleh left San Francisco to take a head coaching job with the Jets. He found another inside-out tweener in John Franklin-Myers and made him into a successful pro. He steered the development of Quinnen Williams, who made his first All-Pro list and three Pro Bowls under Saleh. Of course, plenty of Saleh’s hits have been early first-round selections such as Williams, Buckner and Armstead. But the nature of this defense is that it both allows defensive tackles to play extremely fast and benefits tremendously from having an elite defensive tackle who can wreak havoc upfield.
Enter Simmons, who just clocked in as DT2 in Fowler’s positional top-10 ranking poll. A Titan since 2019, Simmons has never played in a defense that is as fast and free with its front as Saleh’s system will be this season. There was a notable uptick in Simmons’ production in 2021, when Jim Schwartz joined the Titans as a senior defensive assistant — he had a big influence on the fronts that then-defensive coordinator Shane Bowen was running.
Last season, Simmons saw another big spike in production, as his 11 sacks and 17 tackles for loss were both career highs. Simmons slimmed down in anticipation of a more upfield 2025 campaign, as the presence of nose tackle T’Vondre Sweat allowed Simmons to play in more under tackle (traditionally more upfield) alignments. Even then, the Titans were still a light-box team on early downs that would ask Simmons to play multiple gaps in the running game to account for the numbers deficiency.
This won't happen nearly as often with Saleh, who will ask Simmons to get into the backfield with abandon and expect the players behind to clean up the mess.
Simmons' raw production saw a big leap not just because of his body recomposition but also his total playtime. Simmons played 764 snaps despite sitting out almost three full games in 2025. Save for Week 18, in which the Titans managed their starters, Simmons played at least 80% of the snaps in all but two games. He played at least 90% of the snaps in five. That's a huge load for a defensive tackle, as the big fellas tend to tire more quickly.
Saleh has spoken at length about keeping Simmons in a rotation, saying, "If he's able to go to 50 plays out of 60, he's not doing it right." In other words, Simmons should be so effortful when on the field that he can't manage the same quantity of snaps he did last season. But Simmons now is a cut above even Buckner and Williams were when they played under Saleh, and he might be able to earn a bigger chunk of the snaps once Saleh sees just how impactful he can be.
The Titans are still quite far from being a good team. But a dominant pass rush can cover a lot of ills on an otherwise imperfect defense, and Simmons alone can be that level of a game-wrecking presence when fully unleashed. Don't be surprised when the Titans are floating around .500 all season behind a first-team All-Pro caliber season from Simmons.
