The New York Giants are 4-2-1 and first in the NFC East as they chase their first playoff trip since 2022. With the Nov. 10 trade deadline nine days away, the All-Pro defensive tackle they tried to pry loose from the Tennessee Titans, Jeffery Simmons, is now with the Chicago Bears after an Oct. 29 trade.

But it’s how the Giants went after Simmons that is drawing reaction now. The Athletic’s Jonathan Jones reported that head coach John Harbaugh personally called Titans owner Amy Adams Strunk in a bid to land Simmons, and at least one rival general manager objected.

NFL reporter Ralph Vacchiano, who called the report a “fascinating story on how aggressive the Giants were,” is questioning the criticism rather than the call.

Ralph Vacchiano Questions the Anger Over John Harbaugh’s Call

That criticism has a voice in Jones’ report. “One GM who became aware of the call said it violates a code amongst primary football decision-makers, that they will only deal with each other,” he wrote.

According to Jones, Giants general manager Joe Schoen first reached out to Titans GM Mike Borgonzi, who told Schoen and other teams that Tennessee wouldn’t trade Simmons, and Harbaugh then got the same answer from Strunk. His report, which cited multiple sources on the call, described it as “breaking with traditional NFL trade-talk norms.”

Vacchiano added: “Sounds like that move angered some around the NFL — a weird reaction in a league where almost everyone will do almost anything to win.”

Borgonzi laid out where Tennessee stood on the day of the trade: “At no point anytime since I’ve been here did we ever try to trade Jeffery Simmons. We’ve gotten a lot of phone calls on Jeff really since I’ve been hired here, but it’s never really crossed my mind.”

Before the season, the Titans had signed Simmons to a three-year, $105.8 million extension that kept him under contract through 2030.

On Oct. 29, coach Robert Saleh tied the interest in him to a 1-6 start: “I told our guys, when you don’t close out games and you’re standing here at 1-6 teams are going to start fishing. And eventually a team threw a hook big enough that I don’t think any of us could have said no to.”

Jeffery Simmons Sits Atop the Defensive Tackle Board

Simmons, 29, was a first-team All-Pro in 2025, when he posted a career-best 11 sacks.

Through Week 8, his season grade of 98.9 in Pro Football Network’s NFL DT Impact Grade makes him the top-ranked defensive tackle of 121 graded, and PFN posted “the top 10 NFL defensive tackles this season” the day of the trade.

A day later, PFN posted “the 10 most disruptive NFL defensive tackles in 2026,” and Simmons led that list, too.

In the end, it was Chicago that got Tennessee to budge. To land Simmons along with a fifth-round choice in 2028, the Bears handed the Titans first-rounders in both 2027 and 2028, plus a fourth-rounder in 2027.

Laying out what had shifted, Borgonzi said that same day, “I got a phone call late last night from a person that I’ve known for a while, Ryan Poles… We considered the compensation, and it was too good to pass up.”

Poles and Borgonzi worked together with the Kansas City Chiefs, and their deal was a general-manager-to-general-manager move. Jones reported that Harbaugh answers to Giants ownership rather than to Schoen. In Tennessee, according to Jones, Strunk has empowered Borgonzi to make football decisions for the franchise.