Kansas City Chiefs left tackle Josh Simmons is mysteriously missing from the team – again.
Simmons plays one of the most important positions in football. He’s paid to protect the blind side of Patrick Mahomes, a central figure in the NFL’s defining dynasty and one of the most valuable assets in American sports.
Yet Simmons has played in just eight of 20 games since the Chiefs drafted him two seasons ago.
Khali Benson, an undrafted rookie right tackle who played exclusively on the right side in college, replaced Simmons this season. The Chiefs are 3-0, but Benson showed obvious limitations Sunday against the Dolphins. The highlights of the team’s victory are spoiled by defenders beating him off the line of scrimmage almost immediately.
The Chiefs offense lacks the stability of Simmons. And yet, there’s still no information on when he might return, or if he’ll return at all this season.
How does this happen in a league where highly paid insiders compete to provide minute-by-minute injury updates on even the NFL’s most obscure players?
To understand how, we must return to the 2025 preliminary draft process.
Offensive tackle Josh Simmons #71 of the Kansas City Chiefs stands on the team sideline during the fourth quarter against the Los Angeles Rams at Arrowhead Stadium on August 15, 2026, in Kansas City, Missouri. (Getty Images)
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In October 2024, Simmons suffered a season-ending patellar tendon injury at Ohio State. After the season, reports indicated that he was well ahead of schedule in his recovery. The Chiefs selected him 32nd overall. A week after the draft, Simmons was active for rookie minicamp.
According to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler, the national reporter most linked to the Chiefs, the injury did not drop Simmons to the last pick of the first round. The concern was something less clinical and more worrying: his character.
“Several teams agree: Josh Simmons had the best tape of any OT last year. And they’re not super concerned about recovering from the torn patella tendon. The concern is more maturity/character. But he’s headed to the sweet spot, loaded with veterans,” Fowler posted on X on April 24, 2025.
It remains unclear what these “character concerns” were. But they had to be substantial for almost every team in the league to pass on an elite taped left tackle who had already been cleared for contact on draft night.
Through the first month of last season, it seemed like the Chiefs took advantage of the rest of the league’s hesitation. Simmons appeared to be the long-term answer to Kansas City’s chronic left tackle problem.
This reading no longer holds.
On October 6, 2025, two hours before the Chiefs’ Monday Night Football game against the Jacksonville Jaguars, the team abruptly listed Simmons as questionable due to “illness.” He finally played and played well.
The episode would have disappeared into the weekly swirl of NFL oddities if not for what happened a few days later.
After a full week of practice, Simmons failed to show up for his pregame responsibilities the following Sunday against the Lions. It was reported that players and staff members did not know where he was. After the game, head coach Andy Reid suggested he knew where Simmons was.
Reid and the Chiefs offered almost no explanation afterward. The silence continued through much of Simmons’ four-game absence, which the team described solely as a personal/family issue.
Reporters have provided no real clarification over the past year as to what happened or why members of the organization apparently were unaware of Simmons’ absence until game time.
Last month, Sports Illustrated’s Matt Verderame provided the first substantial report on the matter, claiming that Simmons left the team without approval the Saturday before the Lions game and that there was a period when “the team didn’t know where he was.”
This is also the version of the story that OutKick heard but could not independently verify. The team will not confirm, deny or comment on the matter. OutKick emailed Chiefs general manager Brett Veach and Simmons’ agent, Drew Rosenhaus, ahead of Verderame’s report to ask if those details were accurate. Neither responded.
Which brings us back to the present.
Josh Simmons, #71 of the Kansas City Chiefs, prepares to block Patrick Johnson, #48 of the Philadelphia Eagles, during the second quarter of an NFL game at Arrowhead Stadium on September 14, 2025, in Kansas City, Missouri. (Getty Images)
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After a full training camp, Simmons missed his first practice of the season on August 18. Verderame later reported that Simmons was “fine.”
“When Chiefs LT Josh Simmons missed practice with a back injury, I was told ‘he’s fine’. Don’t feel any concern for the second-year star,” Verderame posted on X.
It is now September 28th. Simmons has not practiced since. He missed the first three games of the season. Even though the team says he’s been in the building, he’s clearly not doing “well.”
However, we’ve already established that Verdemran’s sources within the team are solid. There’s reason to believe the team considered Simmons’ injury minor at the time.
Something amended.
On Monday, Reid offered a vague, almost worrying update.
“I’ll tell you what,” Reid told Chiefs Digest reporter Matt Derrick. “I’ll let you know when Josh (Simmons) comes back. I’ll be the first to tell you. So we’ll see how it all goes.”
The contrast with Reid’s other injury updates is hard to ignore. When asked about safety Chamarris Connor, who like Simmons is the only other starter to miss the team’s first three games, Reid seemed much more blunt.
“Yeah, so he practiced last week, and he’ll do it again this week too,” Reid said. “So there’s a good chance he’ll be there. We’ll just see how the week goes, but it looks like it’s going to be a pretty decent opportunity.”
Now consider the reports about other injured Chiefs players. When rookie Mansoor Delane injured his shoulder in Week 1, Adam Schefter, Ian Rapoport and Tom Pelissero quickly reported that the injury was minor and continued to provide updates throughout the week.
ESPN, Fox, NFL Network, NBC and Amazon dedicate weekly pregame segments to injury news. They inform viewers of the availability of rotational backup linebackers and defensive backs. Yet we can’t find a single example of them discussing the status of the player tasked with protecting Patrick Mahomes.
Over the past month, a national report has been released on Simmons. This comes from Fowler, who rightly described the injury as “mysterious.”
We keep coming back to this word.
Kansas City Chiefs offensive tackle Josh Simmons (71) against the Arizona Cardinals during an NFL preseason game at State Farm Stadium on August 9, 2025. (Mark J. Rebilas/Imagn Images)
At a minimum, we can establish this: The NFL’s top reporters either don’t know the story behind Simmons’ absence or choose not to talk about it publicly.
Likewise, the Chiefs either don’t know when Simmons will return or are deliberately withholding information they routinely provide about other players.
It’s unusual, to use a term.
Simmons’ absence has understandably sparked speculation as to whether it’s related to the team’s demise last year.
Yahoo NFL analyst Hayden Winks is among those asking this question.
“So, Josh Simmons is going to miss more time than he would have on IR, which could mean he misses longer than the Chiefs expected due to his back injury. There’s also a story that he just wasn’t there. There could be a lot more to this story than what’s public,” he posted Monday.
Price Carter is one of the Chiefs’ best film analysts. He detailed the unusual nature of the Simmons saga to OutKick:
“It would be difficult to describe Josh Simmons’ injury timeline as normal. What started as a routine back injury, described by several reporters as a ‘minor issue’ that he might ‘play out if it was game week,’ has now dragged on for nearly two months. With no return timetable and no corresponding roster changes, local media are left with only the information fed to them by the team. Andy Reid is known for not saying much about the podium and the team only provides a very brief overview. Watch media practice. Reporters say Simmons is with the team, but that’s all the news there is.
This speculation is justified. Simmons is not an anonymous private employee. He is the left tackle for the Kansas City Chiefs. And by offering so little clarity, his own team invited the public to fill in the gaps.
There may be a deeper explanation for Simmons’ absence. Perhaps the character issues before the draft are related to the absence last year and this year. There is precedent for NFL teams describing a personnel matter as an injury in an effort to protect a player. The Bills did this with Ed Oliver facing tragedy.
Yet the Chiefs made the situation worse by saying nothing while keeping Simmons on the active roster. They could have placed him on injured reserve and said they would re-evaluate him later in the season. They could have placed him on the non-football injury list and said he was out until further notice while asking the public to respect his privacy.
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Instead, leaders chose ambiguity.
The longer this persists without explanation, the more difficult it becomes to accept that it is just a simple back injury. If it was just a back injury, why the secrecy? Why this lack of reporting? Why this cautious language?
For some reason, the Kansas City Chiefs are unwilling to provide details on Josh Simmons.
There is already speculation that Simmons doesn’t want to play or doesn’t like football. At this point, how is this not one of the possibilities that comes to mind?
At this point, Kansas City owes Simmons and his fans one of two things: an explanation or a roster decision that recognizes there is no clear path back.
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Apparently, the team has concluded that the widespread speculation about their left tackle is less damaging than the truth.
Gn sports
