Kansas City Chiefs have found their franchise left tackle in Josh Simmons and he’s even better than they could have hoped for
The Kansas City Chiefs have plenty of problems to address on offense, but the left tackle position isn’t one of them.
Lost in the 0-2 start for the Kansas City Chiefs is that the team has seemingly managed to fix a problem that plagued them a season ago.
This time last year, Kingsley Suamataia was being benched at left tackle in favor of Wanya Morris, beginning a season-long revolving door at the left tackle position. After just two weeks of the 2025 NFL season, the Chiefs have plenty of problems to figure out on offense, but they’re not with the left tackle position.
Rookie LT Josh Simmons surrendered four pressures in the Week 1 game against the Chargers, which was an admirable effort in your first-ever NFL start. In Week 2 against the Eagles, Simmons built on that performance. In 36 pass-blocking snaps, Simmons pitched a shutout performance with no sacks or pressures allowed against an extremely stout Philly defensive front. It’s even more impressive when you realize he missed four snaps due to dehydration fairly early into the game.
With “Monday Night Football” still to be played, Simmons currently ranks as the second-highest graded left tackle (85.2) on true pass-blocking sets, according to Pro Football Focus. The only player to rank higher thus far is Broncos LT Garrett Bolles. “True Pass Sets” exclude a variety of plays, including those with less than four rushers, play action, screens, short dropbacks, and when time-to-throw is under 2 seconds.
Chiefs HC Andy Reid evaluates rookie LT Josh Simmons’ performance, including his interception return tackle
Andy Reid has been pretty level in his comments on Simmons to this point. He doesn’t want to overpromise only for the rookie to underdeliver, which seemed to happen with Kingsley Suamataia a season ago. Every step of the way, Reid has preached that Simmons needs improvement on the little things. After his shutout performance in Week 2, the messaging remained consistent.
“As far as Josh’s performance goes, he’s getting better,” Reid said about Simmons. “He’s had a couple of nice challenges here the last couple of weeks. He has another one coming this week, but I felt like he was getting better. There’s some things he’s got to clean up, and some of the detail stuff within the run game and the pass game protection stuff, but I thought he did a nice job of stepping up in this game.”
One of those moments where he stepped up? After Patrick Mahomes’ red zone interception. Simmons, at 6-foot-5 and 311 pounds, reached a top speed of 18.35 mph to make a potential TD-saving tackle on Eagles S Andrew Mukuba. It was the third-fastest speed an offensive lineman has reached over the past two seasons, according to NFL Next Gen Stats.
“I’d say that was pretty impressive,” Reid said of the play. “I mean that for a big guy to be able to run like that, first of all, is something. You got a chance to see his athletic ability, body control, and all that. You’d hate to have it in that situation for it to show up. But that part was impressive. And just as want-to, to get there, I thought was impressive. A lot of guys would, you know, in this league, would stand around and watch, as opposed to chasing. And he chased along with the other guys. They just weren’t quite fast enough to get there, but he did a nice job with that.”
That ensuing drive ultimately ended in an Eagles touchdown, but Simmons had the right mindset to chase down the play and prevent the score.
“I started seeing the defense turn around and run,” Simmons said of the play after the game. “And I was like, ‘Who has the ball?’ I saw it. I knew we were in a tight game, so I just had to turn them out.”
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