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Chris Simms had already tipped off the social team at NBC and Pro Football Talk with the potential scoop.
A recent phone call with his father had him expecting his father would make good on his comments that he would be open to letting Abdul Carter wear his retired No. 11 jersey.
Then came a call from his sister, Deirdre, whom he told he would be fine with his father doing so.
Wrong response.
“(She said) ‘I thought you were going to be on my side, how dare you. Forget it, I don’t want to talk to you and we’re hanging up,” Chris said on “PFT Live with Mike Florio” on Monday.
“That’s when I knew, uh-oh, mom and sister have gotten involved here. And mom and sister have one more vote than me and brother (Matt), and I don’t know where my brother stands on this.”
Phil asked if his son could help change his mother’s and sister’s vote, but ultimately, the Simms women won the battle, and No. 11 will remain in the rafters at MetLife Stadium.
Carter, after being turned down by Lawrence Taylor and now Simms, will continue his quest to find his jersey number for his rookie season.
“I knew they threw a fit. I think it’s going to the point where literally there was like, they were shedding tears. I’m not trying to embarrass my mom or my sister, but that’s how important it was to them,” Chris said. “And on top of that, the blowback off of that and the amount of people that came to my dad, ‘Don’t give your number up, don’t do that,’ I think he was a little taken aback by that. Ultimately, he’s not going to do it, he got outvoted by his family, specifically his daughter and his wife, but that’s where it stands right now.”
The Simms-Carter saga began when Phil mentioned on FanDuel TV that he thought it would be fine if he gave Carter his No. 11 jersey, and he would have no problem with doing so.
Carter wore No. 11 while starring at Penn State.
Chris said he told his father he would have no problem with him doing so, but advised him to call Taylor first to ensure they didn’t have separate reactions that could lead to controversy.
Taylor exclusively told The Post he wanted Carter to make history with his own number.
Carter’s agent, Drew Rosenhaus, had reached out to Chris’ co-host, Mike Florio, to get Phil’s number so the defensive agent could call the ex-quarterback, and Giants general manager Joe Schoen had also reached out to the Giants legend regarding the matter.
Phil’s wife and daughter, though, weren’t having it.
“My dad’s texting me going, ‘Your mom and your sister they are just killing me. I don’t know if I can do it ‘They’re killing me,'” Chris said. “I’m like, ‘It’s your number, Dad. You got to do what you want.’
“(He said), ‘I need your help, try to change your sister’s mind,’ that’s what he texts me.”
He added, “I don’t think he was expecting the blowback from my mom and my sister and the rest of the family to the point of which he got here, and that made him change that.”
Chris said he does not know which way his brother would have voted, but suspects he may have aligned with his mother and sister.
However, even if Matt had sided with his brother, Chris said those two votes didn’t carry the same weight as the other two votes.
He said he only learned about his father passing on un-retiring the number after being sent a tweet.
“He knows the wrath of not listening to them, and how long that can go. Especially with my sister,” Chris said of his mother and sister. “My sister is ruthless, like ruthless. My sister is the kind of girl, and she’s all love, she loves football, she loves the Giants too. If you go to the Giants game with her and she seems somebody with like an Eli Manning jersey on, she’ll go ‘Why you wearing that, why wouldn’t you get a Phil Simms jersey?’ She’s one of them. She really is. She’s diehard to my dad. They have more votes.”
While Carter won’t wear No. 11, Chris said the entire family is supporting him.
“We’re rooting for Abdul Carter, the Simms family, that’s for sure,” Chris said. “Even though he won’t be wearing No. 11 he can be an honor member of the Simms family or the No. 11 club if he wants to be.”
English (US)