Phil Simms Still Uncomfortable with Michael Vick

In Imus’s view, CBS Sports’s Phil Simms wears the best shirts and ties of almost anybody on television, including Simms’s broadcasting partner Jim Nantz, who Imus said looks like he shops at discount stores for his ties and sports coats. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
 
Except that Nantz, as Simms divulged, “fancies himself the world’s greatest dresser.”
 
The two can duke it out this Sunday in New England, where they’ll call the game between the Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts, which isn’t the spectacle it once was, in Simms’s opinion.
 
“It’s not the two best teams in football,” he said. “I don’t know who the best teams are right now.”
 
He allowed that the New York Jets and Giants are among the top five teams in the NFL at present, but was less sure about the Philadelphia Eagles, whose quarterback is the controversial Michael Vick.
 
Though Simms deemed him “the fastest quarterback that’s ever played in the NFL,” he acknowledged that determining one’s feelings about Vick, who went to jail for dog fighting and animal abuse, is still tricky business.
 
“He’s a nice guy, and all that stuff,” Simms, who covered the Eagles game a few weeks ago, said. “But before he comes in the room, after he leaves the room, you think about what he did to those dogs. If you’re an animal lover, that’ll never leave you. It always crosses my mind, every time I talk about him, think about him. Watching him play—it’s one of the first thoughts that comes to me.”
 
Another NFL personality receiving lots of attention this year is Jets head coach Rex Ryan, whose bombastic behavior Simms believes has contributed to his team’s success. “It keeps them excited,” he said. “They’re always in the news, it keeps the players on edge, and they usually show up the way they play.”
 
Simms is frequently asked whether he thinks the Jets and Giants could meet in the Superbowl this year, as they did in Dan Jenkins’s 1972 novel Semi-Tough. “I’ve never read a book so funny in my life, and almost haven’t to this day,” Imus said.
 
A frequent traveler, Simms has been subjected numerous times to airport security pat-downs. Naturally, Imus wondered if the two-time Superbowl winning, former New York Giants quarterback enjoyed the experience.
 
“My life hasn’t gotten that dull,” he said. “I’m still doing okay.”
 
Just making sure.
 
-Julie Kanfer