Justin Simmons exit from Broncos Country has one final twist in it

On Thursday, long-time Broncos safety Justin Simmons was cut from the team, as the free agent safety market grows, and a thank-you letter posted on his social media is quite the read. Maybe I am reading way too much into this, but perhaps I'm not. One thing Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton does is coach his players tough.

He's an old-school coach from the Bill Parcells tree and has had a ton of success as a HC in the NFL. When Vic Fangio was the head coach, there seemed to be rumblings here and there that some players didn't really enjoy Fangio's tough coaching style. Well, on his Twitter/X account, Broncos safety Justin Simmons posted a thank-you/farewell message, and you can read it here:

So, in this farewell message, Justin Simmons thanks the following people related to the Denver Broncos organization:

John Elway, Joe Ellis, Pat Bowlen, George Paton, and the Walton-Penner Ownership Group.

He obviously mentioned the fans and his teammates as well. But oddly enough, there is no mention of Sean Payton in this farewell. Maybe I should take my tinfoil hat off, but man, this feels a bit weird to me. We do know with strong certainty that Sean Payton is the one with the final authority with the roster, so we can confidently say that Payton himself made the tough call to cut Justin Simmons.

And maybe with the news that the Broncos plan on cutting Russell Wilson, perhaps that upset the players. In fact, the benching of Russell Wilson late in the 2023 NFL season did not seem to be popular among the players, and Payton ripping Russell Wilson on the sidelines during the Detroit Lions game also could have upset players, including Simmons.

Maybe Justin Simmons was never a fan of Sean Payton to begin with, and his not mentioning Payton by name in this farewell letter is a bit odd to me.