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Clark Hunt, Kansas City Chiefs owner.

With the Kansas City Chiefs set to begin practice and game plan installation for their Week Eight Monday Night Football game against the Washington Commanders at Arrowhead Stadium, there was still no indication that 2025 first-round draft pick Josh Simmons would show up for those practice sessions.

On Tuesday, Chiefs owner Clark Hunt made his first statement on Simmons’ ongoing absence from the team — but he didn’t shed much light on the situation and may have only made it more baffling.

Simmons, an offensive left tackle out of Ohio State was taken 32nd overall by the Chiefs in the draft, and started the first four games of the season without incident.

First Hint Something Was Wrong Came in Week 5

The first indication that something may be wrong with Simmons came shortly before the Chiefs Week Five Monday matchup against the Jacksonville Jaguars when, just hours before kickoff, the team added Simmons to its injury report, listing him as “questionable” due to “illness.” But no further information was offered, and Simmons started the game as normal.

In fact, Simmons was on the field for all 64 offensive snaps in that game, the second time this season that he played 100 percent of his team’s snaps. In his five games, Simmons has played 95.2 percent of the Chiefs’ snaps on offense.

Simmons continued to play at high level. According to Pro Football Focus, he allowed only one sack with a pass blocking grade of 73.

But six days later, after first announcing that there were no injuries for their game against the Detroit Lions, the team suddenly revised the report to announce that Simmons was out for the game with the cause listed as “Not Injury Related – Personal.”

Owner Asked About Simmons Situation

NFL Network correspondent Ian Rapoport subsequently reported that Simmons was “dealing with a family matter back home in California.”

Simmons has not been seen at the Chiefs facility since. He missed Sunday’s Week Seven game against the Las Vegas Raiders as well. The Chiefs stayed mum about the situation, with coach Andy Reid saying on multiple occasions that general manager Brett Veach would “handle” the Simmons issue.

In fact, as recently as Monday — the morning after the Chiefs’ 31-0 victory over the Raiders — Reid again said that he had no updates on Simmons, and referred the matter to Veach. “And so we just, you know, move on with that,” Reid said.

On Monday at the fall NFL league meetings in New York City, Hunt — the 60-year-old billionaire son of Chiefs founder Lamar Hunt who owns the team with three of his siblings and serves as Kansas City CEO — was asked by ESPN NFL writer Kalyn Kahler “if he could tell us what’s going on with rookie left tackle Josh Simmons.”

But even the owner responded evasively, saying only, “I really can’t comment,” as quoted by Kahler.

Practices For Week 8 Could Clear Up Mystery

About a week ago, future Hall of Fame quarterback Patrick Mahomes — who Simmons is charged with protecting from opposing pass rushers — admitted that he had been surprised to learn that the rookie left tackle was missing from the team, a situation which according to Outkick reporter Bobby Burack, indicated that “the standard communication process for a player missing a game was not followed.”

Simmons, as of Tuesday night, had not been placed on the NFL’s NFI (Non-Football Injury) list, a move that would rule him out for figure weeks and allow the Chiefs to replace him for that period on their roster.

The fact that Simmons remains off the list appears to signal that the Chiefs expect him back in action sooner that that four-week period — but based on whether or not he appears at practice this week, Simmons’ situation will either be cleared up, or grow more mysterious.

Jonathan Vankin JONATHAN VANKIN is an award-winning journalist and writer who now covers baseball and other sports for Heavy.com. He twice won New England Press Association awards for sports feature writing. He was a sports editor and writer at The Daily Yomiuri in Tokyo, Japan, covering Japan Pro Baseball, boxing, sumo and other sports. More about Jonathan Vankin