Kansas City Chiefs left tackle Josh Simmons is mysteriously absent from the team — again.

Simmons holds one of the most important jobs in football. He is paid to protect the blindside of Patrick Mahomes, the central figure of the NFL’s defining dynasty and one of the most valuable assets in American sports.

Yet Simmons has played in just eight of 20 games since the Chiefs drafted him two seasons ago.

Khali Benson, an undrafted rookie right tackle who played exclusively on the right side in college, has filled in for Simmons this season. The Chiefs are 3-0, but Benson showed clear limitations on Sunday against the Dolphins. The team’s own highlights package of the victory is marred by defenders beating him almost immediately off the line of scrimmage.

The Chiefs offense misses Simmons' stability. And yet, there is still no information regarding when he might return, or whether he will return at all this season.

How does that happen in a league where highly paid insiders compete to deliver minute-by-minute injury updates on even the most obscure players in the NFL?

To understand how, we have to return to the 2025 pre-draft process.

Offensive tackle Josh Simmons #71 of the Kansas City Chiefs stands on the team sideline during the fourth quarter against the Los Angeles Rams at Arrowhead Stadium on Aug. 15, 2026, in Kansas City, Mo. (Getty Images)

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In October 2024, Simmons suffered a season-ending patellar tendon injury at Ohio State. After the season, reports indicated that he was well ahead of schedule in his recovery. The Chiefs selected him 32nd overall. A week after the draft, Simmons was active for rookie minicamp.

According to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler, the national reporter most connected to the Chiefs, the injury did not cause Simmons to fall to the final pick of the first round. The concern was something less clinical and more ominous: his character.

"Several teams agree: Josh Simmons had best tape of any OT last year. And they aren't very concerned with recovery on the torn patella tendon. More of the concern is maturity/character. But he's going to the ideal, veteran-laden place," Fowler posted on X on April 24, 2025.

It remains unclear what those "character concerns" were. But they had to be substantial for nearly every team in the league to pass on a left tackle with elite tape who had already been cleared for contact by draft night.

For the first month of last season, it appeared the Chiefs had taken advantage of the rest of the league’s hesitation. Simmons looked like the long-term answer to Kansas City’s chronic left tackle problem.

That reading no longer holds.

On Oct. 6, 2025, two hours before the Chiefs’ Monday Night Football game against the Jacksonville Jaguars, the team abruptly listed Simmons as questionable due to an "illness." He ultimately played and played well.

The episode would have disappeared into the weekly churn of NFL oddities if not for what happened days later.

After a full week of practice, Simmons did not show up for his pregame responsibilities the following Sunday against the Lions. It was reported that players and members of the staff were unsure of his whereabouts. After the game, head coach Andy Reid suggested he knew where Simmons was.

Reid and the Chiefs offered almost no explanation afterward. The silence continued throughout much of Simmons’ four-game absence, which the team described only as a personal/family issue.

Reporters provided no real clarity over the past year about what happened or why members of the organization were apparently unaware of Simmons’ absence until close to game time.

Last month, Sports Illustrated’s Matt Verderame provided the first substantive report on the matter, saying Simmons left the team without approval the Saturday before the Lions game and that there was a period of time in which the "team didn't know where he was."

That is also the version of the story OutKick has heard but have been unable to independantly verify. The team will not confirm, deny, or comment on the matter. OutKick emailed Chiefs general manager Brett Veach and Simmons’ agent Drew Rosenhaus before Verderame’s report to ask whether those details were accurate. Neither responded.

Which brings us back to the present.

Josh Simmons No. 71 of the Kansas City Chiefs prepares to block Patrick Johnson No. 48 of the Philadelphia Eagles during the second quarter of an NFL game at Arrowhead Stadium on Sept. 14, 2025, in Kansas City, Mo. (Getty Images)

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After a full training camp, Simmons missed his first practice of the season on Aug. 18. Verderame reported afterward that Simmons was "fine."

"On Chiefs LT Josh Simmons missing practice with a back injury, I’m told 'he’s fine.' Don’t sense any concern about the second-year star," Verderame posted on X.

It is now Sept. 28. Simmons has not practiced since. He has missed the first three games of the season. Though the team says he has been in the building, he's clearly not "fine."

However, we have already established that Verdemran's sources with the team are strong. There is reason to believe that the team did consider Simmons' injury minor at the time.

Something changed.

On Monday, Reid offered a vague, almost eerie update.

"I’ll tell you what," Reid told Chiefs Digest reporter Matt Derrick. "I will let you guys know when Josh [Simmons] is coming back. I’ll be the first to tell you. So we’ll just see how that all works out."

The contrast with Reid’s other injury updates is difficult to ignore. Asked about safety Chamarris Connor, who, like Simmons, is the only other starter to miss the team’s first three games, Reid sounded far more direct.

"Yeah, so he practiced last week, and he’ll get going this week, too," Reid said. "So there’s a good chance he’ll be out there. We’ll just see how the week goes, but it looks like it’ll be a pretty decent chance."

Now consider the reporting around other injured Chiefs players. When rookie Mansoor Delane injured his shoulder in Week 1, Adam Schefter, Ian Rapoport, and Tom Pelissero quickly reported that the injury was minor and continued providing updates throughout the week.

ESPN, Fox, NFL Network, NBC and Amazon devote weekly pregame segments to injury news. They inform viewers about the availability of backup linebackers and rotational defensive backs. Yet we cannot find a single example of them discussing the status of the player tasked with protecting Patrick Mahomes.

Over the past month, there has been one national report about Simmons. It came from Fowler, who, fittingly, described the injury as "mysterious."

We keep coming back to that word.

Kansas City Chiefs offensive tackle Josh Simmons (71) against the Arizona Cardinals during a preseason NFL game at State Farm Stadium on Aug. 9, 2025. (Mark J. Rebilas/Imagn Images)

At minimum, we can establish this: the NFL’s top reporters either do not know the story behind Simmons’ absence or are choosing not to pursue it publicly.

Likewise, the Chiefs either do not know when Simmons will return or are deliberately withholding information they routinely provide about other players.

That is unusual, to use a term.

Simmons’ absence has naturally invited speculation about whether it is connected to last year’s disappearance from the team.

Yahoo NFL analyst Hayden Winks is among those asking.

"So Josh Simmons is going to miss more time than what he would've on IR, which could mean he's missing longer than the Chiefs expected based on this back injury. There's also a history of him just not being around. There could be a lot more to this story than what's public," he posted Monday.

Price Carter is one of the top Chiefs film analysts. He detailed the unusualness of the Simmons saga to OutKick:

"It would be difficult to describe the Josh Simmons injury timeline as normal. What started out as a routine back injury, described by several reporters as a 'minor issue' that he could 'play if it was game week' has now lingered on for the better part of two months. With no timeline for return, and no corresponding roster move the local media is only left with the information they are given by the team. Andy Reid is notorious for not saying much at the podium and the team only provides a very brief look at practice to the media. Reporters state that Simmons is with the team but that is all the news that there is."

That speculation is warranted. Simmons is not an anonymous private employee. He is the left tackle for the Kansas City Chiefs. And by offering so little clarity, his own team has invited the public to fill in the blanks.

Perhaps there is a deeper explanation for Simmons’ absence. Maybe the pre-draft character concerns are connected to last year’s absence and this year’s. There is precedent for NFL teams describing a personal matter as an injury in an effort to protect a player. The Bills did this with Ed Oliver in the face of tragedy.

Still, the Chiefs have made the matter worse by saying nothing while keeping Simmons on the active roster. They could have placed him on injured reserve and said they would re-evaluate him later in the season. They could have placed him on the non-football injury list and said he was out until further notice while asking the public to respect his privacy.

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Instead, the Chiefs have chosen ambiguity.

The longer this lingers without an explanation, the harder it becomes to accept that this is merely a back injury. If it were only a back injury, why the secrecy? Why the lack of reporting? Why the careful language?

For whatever reason, the Kansas City Chiefs do not want to provide the details about Josh Simmons.

Already, there is speculation that Simmons does not want to play or does not love football. At this juncture, how can that not be among the possibilities that come to mind?

At this point, Kansas City owes Simmons and its fans one of two things: an explanation, or a roster decision that acknowledges there is no clear path back.

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Apparently, the team has concluded that rampant speculation about its stud left tackle is less damaging than the truth.