The kid really stuck his foot in his mouth — among other, allegedly less legal things.
“I was smoking marijuana in the car earlier. I took four puffs,” Chris Simms — the NFL quarterback son of Giants legend Phil Simms — told cops when he was pulled over on West Houston Street last month, according to new court papers.
“There’s nothing in the car,” Simms added, referring to his leased 2009 Mercedes, in which his eight-months-pregnant wife was riding shotgun.
“I smoked everything before,” he explained.
The never-before released police statements — along with cop observations that Simms stunk of pot, had bloodshot eyes and was “excited,” “talkative,” and “swaying” on his feet — form the crux of the toking-and-driving case against the tarnished Tennessee Titans quarterback.
But the handsome blond football star is fighting hard to get the statements tossed from the case — along with his refusal to submit to urine and coordination tests — on grounds that cops had no proper cause to stop and question him at a DWI checkpoint.
His lawyer has suggested that his wife — and other “witnesses” — are prepared to corroborate that he never smoked marijuana in the car that day. And in an interview published Sunday, he insisted that New York cops are simply misquoting him.
“I can’t get into it, but what they have me quoted as saying is something I definitely didn’t say,” the Nashville resident told his hometown paper, The Tennessean.
Simms also told the paper that he felt bad, after the arrest, for his famous dad — now an NFL analyst for CBS.
“I feel like I can handle it, but when situations like that happen, I know my dad is going to get drug through the mud,” he told The Tennessean.
Simms is due back in court for a judge’s decision on his toss-the-statements bid on Aug. 23.
He has turned down a no-jail plea deal in which he’d admit he was smoking and driving and get sentenced to pay a $500 fine, serve three days’ community service and suffer a six-month license revocation. If convicted, he faces up to a year in jail.
His license to drive has already been automatically revoked, pending the outcome of the case, due to his refusal to submit to a urine test. He did consent to a blood alcohol test, which revealed no alcohol in his system.
Calls to his defense lawyer were not returned.