Arrowhead Pride
Kansas City’s first-round selection spoke after Saturday’s preseason loss in Arizona.
Although the Kansas City Chiefs suffered a 20-17 loss in their preseason opener against the Arizona Cardinals, the night was a success on one of the team’s most important metrics.
Rookie left tackle Josh Simmons — seeing his first game action since suffering a knee injury while at Ohio State last October — played Kansas City’s first 11 offensive snaps. The first-year pro held up well in his night’s work, frequently shutting down former Denver Broncos edge rusher Baron Browning — who had two sacks when he last faced Kansas City in 2023.
After the game, Simmons was happy to have gotten some work with his new teammates, but he knows he can still find areas for improvement.
“First of all,” he remarked, “it was a lot of fun with the guys. You see the work from camp go ahead and translate onto the field. I think we had a great first quarter. Obviously, the whole team just had one, but [there’s] good nuggets that you can learn from going into practice next week.”
Simmons did have to adjust to a new opponent after facing only his teammates for the past few weeks.
“They rush different from our guys,” he observed of the Cardinals. “So, that’s probably a bigger adjustment you have to be able to adjust to because people may line up wider. They line up a lot wider than we do, so you’re going to have to set a little bit deeper and keep that position between you and the quarterback and make quarterback a lot more accurate. It’s probably that suggestion on the fly.”
Even so, Simmons believes the teammates he has faced in practice at training camp — particularly pass rushers Chris Jones and George Karlaftis — have adequately prepared him.
“We train really hard,” he declared. “I’m going against the standard every day in Chris Jones and Karlaftis. So when you go against these guys, it’s different, but I wouldn’t say it’s overwhelming.”
Speaking after the loss, head coach Andy Reid was high on the efforts of Simmons and second-year pro Kingsley Suamataia, who started next to him at left guard.
“I wasn’t screaming at him, so I figured he did okay,” Reid joked of Simmons’ night. “He looked like he had a solid day, especially for his first game. He’s been working his tail off. That kid never complains about anything; he just goes. He and Kingsley are trying to develop something over there, and they haven’t missed any snaps. We’ll see how it all works out and sorts out, but I thought for the first time out, they did a nice job.”
Whatever Reid’s true thoughts are, Simmons will be receptive to the feedback. Citing Jones and center Creed Humphrey as influences, he pledged to continue listening to coaches to build on his performance.
“The way you become like a guy like 52 [Humphrey] or 95 [Jones],” he explained, “is you have...
