Justin Simmons joined the Denver Broncos during the 2016 NFL Draft, bits of confetti from the team’s Super Bowl 50 win still floating around the city. He left the Broncos in the spring of 2024, just months before the team earned its first playoff berth in nine long years.
Simmons didn’t get to experience much in the way of team success during his eight years in Denver. He was a part of only one winning season — a 9-7 campaign during his rookie year — and was part of a Broncos team in 2017 that suffered through an eight-game losing streak, the franchise’s longest since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970.
Yet, when Simmons officially announced his retirement from the NFL as a Bronco on Wednesday morning, he did so as one of the most accomplished and revered safeties in franchise history — and one of the team’s most impactful community figures. His retirement comes exactly 10 years to the day Denver selected him in the third round of the 2016 draft out of Boston College.
“Being a Denver Bronco was more than just a team,” Simmons said in a video announcing his retirement posted by the Broncos. “It was my heart, my home and my story.”
Simmons made 30 of his 32 career interceptions for the Broncos, tying him for seventh on the franchise’s all-time list. He was a two-time Pro Bowl selection and earned second-team All-Pro honors four times. From 2019 to 2022, Simmons had picked off at least four interceptions in four straight seasons, a feat matched by no other safety in football during that stretch. From the time he joined the Broncos through his final game with the team at the end of the 2023 season, no player at his position had intercepted more passes.
For much of his career, Simmons was simply the best center fielder in football. When recounting some of his top plays during his retirement video, though, the first that came to mind for Simmons wasn’t an interception.
“The first one would be the time that I sacked Tom Brady (during) my rookie season,” Simmons said. “There they are; he’s doing his thing, taking him down the thing. I was able to get a big-time sack and it was one of those, ‘Welcome to the NFL’ moments for me.”
Simmons was released by the Broncos after the 2023 season, a cost-saving maneuver for a team eating $85 million in dead money as a result of cutting quarterback Russell Wilson. Simmons played the 2024 season with the Atlanta Falcons. He was not with a team in 2025.
Simmons was also the Broncos’ nominee for the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award during three straight seasons and was named the team’s Darrent Williams Good Guy Award winner for his professional and courteous dealings with the media on three different occasions. Both are team records.
Simmons not only spent countless hours at the Boys & Girls Club. He helped civic-minded young people chart their own impactful paths. He paid homage to past Broncos whose work enriched the community.
“I always say that was the biggest honor,” Simmons said. “There’s been a passing-down throughout the years of amazing people coming through this building. It was an honor to be a part of that for eight years and help lead in areas — specifically off the field, too — where we were making real change in the communities that we are also a part of.”
Said former Broncos coach Vic Fangio of Simmons’ work in the community: “He doesn’t do it because he thinks he should. He enjoys doing it, and he does it with a good heart and a good mindset.”
