Tennessee Titans defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons was asked about the trade rumors on Wednesday. With the NFL trade deadline roughly two weeks away, his answer pointed in the same direction it has for years.

The Simmons trade conversation has been all over the internet. We’ve had our own version of it here at A to Z Sports, mostly the internal Titans question of what it would even take to move him. So when Easton Freeze came back from the Titans locker room, my first question was simple: what did Jeff say about trade talk?

The short version: he hasn’t heard anything. The longer version is where it gets revealing.

Jeffery Simmons frames the Titans trade question around leadership

The question to the star player is pretty obligatory. Are you going to get traded? The standard answer is some version of “I don’t know.”

Simmons went further than that. Per Easton, who paraphrased Simmons’ comments, the veteran defensive tackle said he hasn’t heard from his agent or the team. Then he laid out how he thinks about it. For him, it boils down to a choice. He can stay put in a tough situation, lean on his leadership, and see something through, or he can go somewhere else and start over.

Simmons has framed it that way at nearly every turn since he arrived in Nashville. The implied answer is the one he’s given all along: he wants to stay. He wants to keep leaning into the leadership side of his role with Tennessee.

And, to be fair, that’s exactly how you answer that question while you’re still in the building.

Still, I get it from Jeff’s side. If he agreed to a trade, does that feel like giving up on something just because it got hard? Then there’s the starting-over part. Nobody likes change, and most people HATE moving. Simmons has been here a long time. He’s established. He has a life here.

Why this Titans trade deadline feels different for Simmons

Here’s the part that makes this year a different conversation than past years.

Before the Cam Ward era, keeping Simmons around made perfect sense from a timeline standpoint. If the plan was to supercharge the roster around a young quarterback and come flying out of the gates, a star defensive tackle fits that plan.

Now we’re halfway through year two with Ward, and things are sputtering. The future is a lot blurrier than it was in the spring.

So the real questions are uncomfortable ones. Does the 29-year-old fit your timeline? Does he help you win now? Will he still be under contract, and still this good, once the Titans are actually competing again?

The answer is increasingly looking like no. That alone makes it worth picking up the phone and listening.

But it’s complicated. Tennessee has no other star to put on the marketing materials besides Simmons. He IS the identity of this team. There’s also a leadership vacuum in that locker room that doesn’t get any smaller if he walks out of it.

Long story short, it’s complicated. Easton and I both landed in the same spot. If we had to guess today, Simmons probably doesn’t get moved before the deadline. I do think the Titans will look into it more seriously this year than they have before.

Will real offers finally show up for Jeffery Simmons?

Easton brought up a piece Nick Suss wrote on Simmons’ tradeability, and one detail stuck with both of us.

Suss asked the people who actually field calls from other teams whether there had ever been a real offer on the table for Simmons. The answer was basically no. Teams call and ask if he’s available. Titans general manager Mike Borgonzi and company respond with some version of “everybody’s available at the right price.” And then . . . nothing concrete follows.

Easton’s bet is that changes this year, even if Simmons ultimately stays. I’m with him. In my opinion, this will be the hardest year yet for Tennessee to turn away the Simmons phone calls and conversations.

Turning down a “just checking in” call is easy. Turning down a real package while the season slips away is a different exercise entirely.

Simmons’ preference appears unchanged. What could change is whether someone gives Tennessee a reason to reconsider its own.