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By Rowan Fisher-Shotton
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Few players in the AFC West enter 2026 with more obvious breakout potential than Kansas City Chiefs left tackle Josh Simmons.
Simmons fell to the Chiefs at the end of the first round of the 2025 NFL Draft largely because of a torn patellar tendon suffered at Ohio State, which limited him to just six games. Yet, even with all that missed time, he still earned third-team All-Big Ten honors.
Any doubts vanished by the time Kansas City's training camp started, too. He won the starting left tackle job outright as a rookie, protecting Patrick Mahomes' blindside for the first five weeks of the 2025 season.
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When healthy, he flashed the talent that made him a first-round pick, posting a strong 75.5 pass-blocking grade by PFF, which ranked 25th among qualified tackles, along with an overall PFF grade of 62.7, which ranked 58th. He allowed just two sacks and two hits all season.
The problem again was availability. An undisclosed personal matter kept Simmons away from the team for four games in the middle of the season, and shortly after he returned, a wrist injury in Week 13 ended his season, capping it at just eight games.
But there's already a lot of hype surrounding him heading into his second season in Kansas City.
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Simmons showed up to minicamp looking noticeably leaner and more muscular, explaining that he had been working out all offseason and had cut down to around 285 to 290 pounds, down from his 310 playing weight last year, with the hope of bulking up to around 300 pounds by Week 1.
The surrounding pieces are all in place for the Chiefs to bounce back from their 6-11 finish last season, their lowest win total since 2012 and the first time not making the playoffs since 2014.
Kansas City brought back offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy, who won two Super Bowls with the franchise in 2019 and 2022, and added running back Kenneth Walker III, who won Super Bowl MVP with the Seahawks last year. Both of those moves were designed to take pressure off both Mahomes and Simmons.
With Jawaan Taylor gone and Jaylon Moore sliding over to right tackle, the left side of the line belongs fully to Simmons now. If he can simply stay on the field for a full 17 games, everything's there for him to emerge as one of the best young left tackles in the league.
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