Arrowhead Pride
On Saturday night, the Kansas City Chiefs dropped their preseason opener to the Arizona Cardinals, recording a 20-17 loss at State Farm Stadium in suburban Phoenix. But even so, Kansas City’s starters looked crisp in the opening quarter, giving a glimpse of what the 2025 team might look like.
This included the highly anticipated pro debut for the team’s left tackle Josh Simmons. During the Chiefs’ training camp at Missouri Western State University in St. Joseph, no other rookie has drawn more attention — either locally or nationally — than the team’s first-round pick from Ohio State.
On Saturday night, Simmons played for only two drives — a total of 10 snaps — but it was enough to demonstrate that what we have seen in St.Joseph hasn’t been a fluke.
The game began with a gift for Kansas City’s first-team offense: the Cardinals lost a fumble on the opening kickoff. This gave the Chiefs great field position and a chance to take an early lead.
After a few successful running plays and a penalty, the Chiefs were knocking on the door.
On the snap, Simmons explodes out of his stance, patiently waiting for the edge rusher to work his way up the field. As the defender starts to close in, Simmons fires his hands, quickly locking up his opponent to win the play. Left unmolested in the pocket, quarterback Patrick Mahomes is able to hit wide receiver Jason Brownlee for the touchdown.
While this play only took a few seconds (and was a fairly easy rep), seeing Simmons work so effortlessly out of his stance displayed his fundamentals and his explosiveness.
On the next offensive drive, we saw Simmons’ pass protection in some extended plays.
Here, Simmons is 1-on-1 with the edge rusher. On the snap, he fires out of his stance, transferring the power from his inside drive foot to his slide foot. Keeping his feet close to the ground, he takes short, powerful steps — and when the edge comes in close, Simmons sinks his hips and fires his hands into the defender’s frame. While the whistle hasn’t yet blown, the play between these two men is essentially over. While mirroring the edge down the line, Simmons remains locked on through the end of the play. This highlights his strong core and grip, along with the flexibility and power he possesses in his lower half.
A few plays later, Simmons made his first blunder of the evening.
On this play, Simmons does a good job of getting out of his stance, but misses wide with his hands. This allows the edge rusher to gain control of the inside positioning. He starts to work a bull rush, but Simmons anchors himself to the ground to slow it down — and eventually regains hand position to win the leverage battle.
The snap was far from perfect. But Simmons displayed the ability to recover after being beaten off the snap. That’s a key trait that we see in...
