{"id":638720,"date":"2026-04-29T15:50:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T15:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/638720\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T15:50:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T15:50:14","slug":"former-falcons-safety-to-retire-from-nfl-after-9-seasons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/638720\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Falcons safety to retire from NFL after 9 seasons"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Atlanta Falcons<\/a> safety Justin Simmons<\/a> is retiring after nine seasons in the NFL, he announced on Wednesday. Simmons, 32, did not play last season but started 16 games for the Falcons in 2024.<\/p>\n

Atlanta went in a different direction in 2025, drafting Xavier Watts<\/a> out of Notre Dame to start alongside Jessie Bates III<\/a> at safety. Watts went on to record five interceptions and was a runner up for the Defensive Rookie of the Year.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Simmons, a four-time All-Pro and two-time Pro Bowler, spent his first eight seasons with the Denver Broncos<\/a> but was released during the 2024 offseason. Over his nine years in the NFL, Simmons recorded 32 career interceptions, 479 solo tackles, 71 passes defended and five forced fumbles.<\/p>\n

Among the many accomplishments of Simmons’ career was intercepting Kansas City Chiefs<\/a> quarterback Patrick Mahomes<\/a> an NFL-record six times. Simmons faced Mahomes twice a year while he was in Denver and made the most of it.<\/p>\n

The Falcons posted a tribute to Simmons on social media upon the news of his retirement.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Falcons Wire: Former Falcons safety Justin Simmons to retire from NFL<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Atlanta Falcons safety Justin Simmons is retiring after nine seasons in the NFL, he announced on Wednesday.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":638721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[1276,64,63,1256,23260,309331,1240,593,6584,85,24250,91566],"class_list":["post-638720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-atlanta-falcons","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-denver-broncos","tag-jessie-bates-iii","tag-justin-simmons","tag-kansas-city-chiefs","tag-nfl","tag-patrick-mahomes","tag-sports","tag-the-falcons","tag-xavier-watts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}