Chris Simms apologizes for halftime take on Dante Moore injury

Chris Simms apologizes for halftime take on Dante Moore injury

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Chris Simms apologizes for halftime take on Dante Moore injury
Chris Simms.
Credit: NBC

NBC Sports college football analyst Chris Simms took to social media on Sunday to issue a contrite apology for his comments during halftime of Saturday night’s game between Oregon and USC, which came moments after Ducks quarterback Dante Moore was taken off the field in an ambulance.

Simms, a former Texas and NFL quarterback who has become one of NBC’s most prominent football voices, posted a video to X addressing how he handled the segment.

“I’d like to take a moment to apologize to everyone for the way I handled the halftime last night between the Oregon Ducks and the USC Trojans,” Simms began. “I clearly did not show enough sympathy for the situation, just diving right into football stuff. And I am sorry for that. I love college football. I want to apologize to all college football fans out there, especially the Oregon Duck fans. I got great respect for the Oregon Ducks, and Dante Moore, if anyone’s seen anything I’ve said, is one of my favorite players in all of college football.”

The incident in question unfolded late in the first half at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, when Moore began to slide at the end of a scramble and was violently drilled by USC linebacker Desman Stephens. Moore remained motionless on the turf for several harrowing minutes before being loaded into an ambulance, while Stephens was flagged for targeting, a call NBC rules analyst Terry McAulay deemed indisputable.

When NBC went to halftime, Simms framed the injury as “a Debbie Downer moment,” lamenting that fans would be deprived of seeing two of the nation’s elite teams at full strength, and then devoted much of the segment to arguing that Moore had slid too late.

“I think the first thing that comes to my mind is what my dad said to me when I became the starting quarterback at the University of Texas,” Simms said. “‘Hey Christopher, when you get out there running around, make sure you get down in time and don’t take any big hits.’ That’s part of being a quarterback.”

Simms went on to implore viewers to have “a little soft spot” for defenders navigating rules engineered to protect quarterbacks, emphasizing that the 6-foot-3, 220-pound Moore was barreling directly at Stephens as the linebacker braced to make the tackle. Moore, Simms contended, “slid very late, and put the defender in a kind of no-win situation.”

To be fair, Simms did reprimand Stephens for his callous behavior after the hit. Cameras captured the linebacker laughing on the sideline as teammates swarmed over to dap him up, which Simms said added “a little more salt and vinegar to the situation” and was “a bad look for USC.” He also conceded that defenders must understand that in 2026, the sport is going to protect its quarterbacks. But many viewers were appalled that, with Moore en route to a hospital, the first extended analysis they heard was largely an argument for why the defender deserved sympathy, and Simms was pilloried on social media as a result.

In his apology, Simms also invoked his own harrowing brush with a catastrophic on-field injury. In 2006, while playing for the Buccaneers, he ruptured his spleen after absorbing a hit and required emergency surgery to save his life.

“I got great respect for Dan Lanning and what he does for that Oregon Duck football organization,” Simms said. “I mishandled it, and I was wrong, and I’m sorry for that. I do have tremendous sympathy for the situation as a guy who almost died on the field from a hard hit 20 years ago. I understand the game, how brutal it can be, and how we have to protect each other on the football field.”

USC has since suspended Stephens for one game, which is what NBC’s Nicole Auerbach had floated during that very halftime show when she suggested the Big Ten could intervene under its sportsmanship policy.

The post Chris Simms apologizes for halftime take on Dante Moore injury appeared first on Awful Announcing.

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