It’s now been a couple of weeks since the Kansas City Chiefs saw their 2025 season go up in smoke. Paired with a season-ending knee injury to Patrick Mahomes that required surgery, it was a truly bitter finish to what was supposed to be a Super Bowl-bound season. Instead, the franchise has plenty of question marks heading into the future.
When the front office drafted Josh Simmons in the first round in 2025, they thought they landed their left tackle for the next decade. Despite coming off of a serious knee injury, Simmons rushed back and was on the field as a starter in Week 1 for the Chiefs. A personal matter and another injury during their Thanksgiving game kept Simmons from playing more than half of the team’s games in his rookie season.
The missed games didn’t allow the offensive tackle to get into much of a rhythm, making it somewhat unsurprising to see him absent on Pro Football Focus’ Top 15 rookies list. While Simmons missed out, four other rookie tackles made the list: Kelvin Banks Jr., Armand Membou, Will Campbell and Jalen Travis. The first three were drafted well ahead of Simmons, but Travis was actually a fourth rounder.
Josh Simmons thoroughly misses out on PFF’s best rookies list
When you delve into PFF’s metrics, Simmons wasn’t very close to making the list at all. RB Jacory Croskey-Merritt took the final spot with a 74.7 overall grade. Simmons currently has a 62.7 overall grade, ranking as the 60th-best tackle in the NFL (out of 86).
Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s Simmons’ run-blocking that is holding him back from reaching his full potential. He ranks sixth-worst among all 86 eligible tackles in the league with a 48.1 run-blocking grade. That’s in comparison to a 75.5 pass-blocking grade, which is solidly 22nd out of 86 tackles. Simmons came out of Ohio State as a much better pass-blocker than run-blocker.
The Chiefs struggled to run the ball efficiently and create explosive plays on the ground all season. While Simmons seemingly didn’t help much in that regard, he wasn’t helped by what was a very inconsistent offensive line unit as a whole.
The silver lining is that Simmons will be far removed from his major knee injury once the 2026 season rolls around. While he didn’t have the immediate, major impact some were hoping for as a rookie, his second season should come with better results. If it doesn’t, then it would be a cause for concern.
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