Arrowhead Pride
For the fourth straight year, I’m considering the 10 biggest questions I have for the Kansas City Chiefs for 2026. Let’s get started!
I’ve been doing this series for four years, and each year, one of the biggest questions about the Chiefs going into the season is the team’s plan at offensive tackle. Since left tackle Eric Fisher and right tackle Mitchell Schwartz got injured during the 2020 season, the Chiefs have been through numerous tackle combinations and haven’t landed on a long-term one yet.
In the 2021 and 2022 seasons, the Chiefs traded for left tackle Orlando Brown Jr. and had guard Andrew Wylie play right tackle for most of those seasons. After the 2022 season, the Chiefs decided not to pay Brown or Wylie and let them go in free agency. The front office signed right tackle Jawaan Taylor and left tackle Donovan Smith in free agency. Taylor was disappointing but did start for three seasons. Smith dealt with injuries and inconsistent play, rotating with the since-traded Wanya Morris at left tackle.
For the 2024 season, the Chiefs drafted Kingsley Suamataia in the second round to be the future left tackle. Suamataia won the job in training camp, but was quickly benched for poor play that season. Morris played left tackle for a while, but the Chiefs were eventually forced to move left guard Joe Thuney to tackle. That plan worked until Super Bowl LIX, where the Chiefs’ tackles got demolished by the Philadelphia Eagles.
The Chiefs addressed left tackle again in the 2025 NFL Draft with Josh Simmons and signed Jaylon Moore to be the swing tackle. Simmons looked like an instant hit, but missed time throughout his first season for multiple reasons. Moore never supplanted Taylor when healthy.
Now, going into 2026, the Chiefs released Taylor and didn’t do anything significant in the offseason to address the position, leaving Simmons and Moore as the presumptive starters.
The question is now about how well they will perform in 2026.
Will Kansas City finally have stable tackle play?
Will both stay healthy?
Do the Chiefs have enough depth at tackle?
Let’s dive into Simmons and Moore individually, then into the depth:
As a rookie, Simmons flashed All-Pro upside. There were questions about how athletic Simmons would be after tearing his patellar tendon in college, but that proved to be no issue.
Simmons showed elite explosiveness and agility in space. He was one of the best pass-protecting tackles in the NFL as a rookie. He also showed flashes of being a weapon in the run game. Simmons is best in space in the run game, but also has impressive power for a tackle on the slender side.
The only issue with Simmons going into this season is his availability. Unfortunately, it’s a real concern. After the knee injury at Ohio State in 2024, Simmons missed four of his first nine NFL games due to personal reasons, so hopefully that was just an outlier. He dislocated and...
