NASHVILLE —  One day after earning praise for keeping his cool during the first day of padded practice, Tennessee Titans defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons found himself at the center of minor controversy on Tuesday. Simmons threw a punch at right tackle JC Latham during a team drill at Titans training camp.

Simmons was then pulled from the session by coaches, and spent the remainder of practice working on a side field with a strength coach as punishment. The incident matters for a number of reasons, all of them tied to the way this football team will be run and the leadership components required to keep things on track.

Saleh’s handling of the situation was the real story

Jeffery Simmons playing with great effort and great intensity is a given.

The rage component is part of what makes him one of the best defensive tackles in the sport. The hope it stays in control for the purposes of avoiding penalties once games of consequence arrive. But Tuesday was Saleh’s first test by his roster.

Not his first time as a head coach, but his first year in Tennessee, and the way an experienced coach handles a situation like this tells you something.

The comparison to two years ago is impossible to ignore. In former coach Brian Callahan’s first day of padded practices as an NFL head coach, almost two years to the day, Simmons and Latham got into it during Latham’s rookie year. Simmons swung on Latham, who was wearing a helmet, which is a stupid thing for any football player to do.

Callahan didn’t kick Simmons out.

He didn’t remove him from the situation. He let Simmons go back in on the next play. Simmons could not keep his cool. A fight broke out, players ended up on the ground, and Simmons had to be removed from practice anyway.

Callahan handled it poorly. That was his first failed test.

Saleh did it differently. When the second situation broke out Tuesday and practice came to a screeching halt, everything stopped. Saleh brought everybody to midfield, the entire team, and addressed the group. Fans watching practice waited to see how the head coach would handle it and how the team would respond. Saleh talked to them about the limited hours in the day, the limited hours under the CBA to execute on the practice field, and the fact that the Titans head to San Francisco for joint practices with the 49ers next week.

The message, from what could be observed, was clear: Lock in. Take care of your teammates, and be productive in the minimal amount of time you have to improve as a football team. Saleh made everybody dap it up, sent Simmons away with coaches, and moved on. Simmons was still running hot, but the approach was right. This was a timeout situation, not a full removal from the field.

Finding the right approach with Simmons is an ongoing challenge

Previous Titans coach Mike Vrabel handled a younger Simmons differently in similar situations, essentially telling him to get out if he was going to bog things down.

The defense was worse without Jeffery Simmons once he left the field, but the message had to be sent. Every coaching staff has to find its own way to get the point across: you have to stay in control, because in a game situation, you get tossed. Tennessee almost assuredly loses without Jeffrey Simmons on the field in those circumstances. He has to understand that as a teammate and as a leader.

I have no doubt that he does at the end of the day.

It is still going to happen from time to time. Nobody is perfect. That part of Simmons’ personality is what makes him great at what he does as a professional football player. Hopefully Tuesday was a learned lesson. The bigger takeaway was Saleh grabbing this thing by the horns and establishing how it will go under his watch.

There are a lot of eyes on this coaching staff, this roster, and this organization.

Tennessee hasn’t won consistently in a long time. Four years of losing the way this franchise has been losing leaves a stink that is hard to work out of. The only way to do it is to improve consistently through these training camp practices and coalesce as a team.

<iframe id=”totalpoll-iframe-416″ src=”https://atozsports.info/poll/what-do-you-think-of-the-oilers-throwback-jerseys/?embed=1″ frameborder=”0″ allowtransparency=”true” width=”100%” height=”700″></iframe><script>window.addEventListener(‘message’, function (event) {if (event.data.totalpoll && event.data.totalpoll.action === ‘resizeHeight’) {document.querySelector(‘#totalpoll-iframe-416’).height = event.data.totalpoll.value;}}, false);document.querySelector(‘#totalpoll-iframe-416’).contentWindow.postMessage({totalpoll: {action: ‘requestHeight’}}, ‘*’);</script>

Featured Image: Reuters Connect.