JJ Watt saw a bright future six years ago for Tennessee’s Elijah Simmons, then a Pearl-Cohn football player, and now his prediction is coming true.
At the 2019 NFL Draft in Nashville, Simmons stood on stage alongside 12 other Nashville area high school football players as the Titans made their first-round selection, Jeffery Simmons.
Standing at 6-foot-2, 344 pounds his senior year at Pearl-Cohn, Simmons dwarfed many of his fellow TSSAA athletes on stage, leading Watt, a three-time defensive player of the year winner, to jokingly request his team draft Simmons.
“Can we draft #72 from the Tennessee metro high school team?” Watt asked in a tweet. “Kid looks like a beast.”
JJ Watt saw a bright future six years ago for Tennessee’s Elijah Simmons, then a Pearl-Cohn football player, and now his prediction is coming true.
At the 2019 NFL Draft in Nashville, Simmons stood on stage alongside 12 other Nashville area high school football players as the Titans made their first-round selection, Jeffery Simmons.
Standing at 6-foot-2, 344 pounds his senior year at Pearl-Cohn, Simmons dwarfed many of his fellow TSSAA athletes on stage, leading Watt, a three-time defensive player of the year winner, to jokingly request his team draft Simmons.
“Can we draft #72 from the Tennessee metro high school team?” Watt asked in a tweet. “Kid looks like a beast.”
Simmons is one of six Vols to have received an invite to the NFL combine, along with James Pearce Jr, Dylan Sampson, Omarr Norman-Lott, Dont’e Thornton and Bru McCoy. Experts predict Simmons to draw interest from teams on day three of the NFL Draft.
Simmons played in 55 games for Tennessee, starting eight times and getting 59 total tackles, seven tackles for loss and three pass breakups. Last season Simmons played in all 13 games and had 11 tackles and 1.5 tackles for loss, playing 12 snaps in Tennessee’s College Football Playoff game against Ohio State.
At Pearl-Cohn, Simmons racked up 141 career tackles and 13 tackles for loss as the Firebirds won four straight region titles. Simmons also won TSSAA state titles in the shotput and discus events.
The NFL scouting combine kicked off on Thursday at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, with defensive line and linebackers participating in on-field drills. Defensive backs and tight ends are set to take the field on Friday.
The NFL scouting combine will air live on NFL Network nationwide. The NFL combine can also be streamed on FUBO, which offers a free trial to new subscribers, as well as NFL.com and NFL+.