​There is a certain tragedy that accompanies the career of a truly great player who spends every year on teams that never quite rise to the occasion. It’s the noble warrior giving his all, week after week, only to see his efforts meet with little reward. For the Denver Broncos, that story is epitomized by Justin Simmons, a three-time NFL All-Pro safety who spent eight seasons in Denver from 2016 to 2023. During that stretch, the Broncos missed the playoffs every season, and it wasn’t until after Simmons left the team in a salary-cap move that they finally found postseason success in the years that followed.
In 2024, Simmons joined the Atlanta Falcons, continuing a season that mirrored his earlier struggles in Denver. He did not play in 2025, and he ultimately retired as a Bronco on April 29. Bleacher Report’s Alex Kay has suggested that Simmons, now 32, should consider unretiring and returning to the Broncos, a team that could finally offer him a legitimate Super Bowl chase and the kind of playoff atmosphere he has seldom experienced in his career.
“Simmons was regularly among the league’s top safeties during his time with the Broncos,” Kay wrote on July 9. “He made the Pro Bowl in 2020 and led the NFL in interceptions with six in 2022. He was also productive in 2024 with the Atlanta Falcons. In what proved to be his last campaign, he tallied 62 tackles, seven passes defended, and two interceptions while making 16 starts. Still just 32 years old, it’s hard to imagine that Simmons couldn’t still play a pivotal role in a defense. After a year’s layoff, he might need some time to get up to speed, but he could probably be a starting-caliber option in the right situation. Seeing Simmons back with the Broncos would be ideal, since the current squad could provide the Super Bowl pursuit that eluded him. It would be great to see him latch on with just about any contender and get to finally experience playoff football.”
There might have been a moment late in the 2025 season when the Broncos could have used Simmons, following an injury that removed standout starter Brandon Jones from the lineup. Jones suffered a season-ending pectoral injury and was placed on injured reserve on December 15. ESPN’s Jeff Legwold commented that his absence represented a significant blow to one of the league’s top defenses, noting that Jones was the team’s third-leading tackler with 78 tackles and played 93% of the defensive snaps that season. The defense did show a noticeable decline in safety play after Jones went down, a gap that conceivably could have been mitigated by having Simmons on the roster.
It’s worth noting the counterpoint: Simmons has earned more than $70 million in career earnings, a dynamic that complicates any sense of sympathy for the financial side of his story. Yet there is a striking stat that remains a reminder of the peculiar arc of his career: he has never appeared in a playoff game in nine seasons and has played on a winning team only once, when the Broncos finished 9-7 in his rookie year of 2016. That historical footnote underscores the peculiar mismatch between individual excellence and the broader fortunes of the teams he has joined.
As Simmons remains a free agent and as talk of a possible return to Denver persists, the broader question is whether a veteran safety of his caliber still has a meaningful, game-changing role in today’s NFL. If he does decide to come back, and if a team can offer him the right fit and the right environment, Simmons could once again contribute on a roster equipped to contend for a title. For fans who have followed his career, the idea of seeing him in playoff football again—perhaps with the Broncos or another veteran contender—has a certain appeal, a chance to witness a storybook end to a career that has already been defined by resilience and elite play, even if it has, at times, existed in the shadow of less successful teams.