Josh Simmons' draft slide had little to do with injury according to new report

Coming into the 2025 NFL Draft, the consensus on Josh Simmons' draft stock was that he would take a hit on the big boards of the league's 32 franchises to varying degrees due to health concerns. While that remains the commonly understood reason why the Kansas City Chiefs were able to grab him at No. 32 overall in the first round, there might be more to the story.

To read the latest from ESPN reporter Jeremy Fowler, draft buzz concerning Simmons had more to do with character concerns and less about his injury history.

"It's the proverbial 'character concerns' that kept him out of the top 20 per those I spoke to around the league," wrote Fowler. "As one AFC personnel man put it: 'Certain things are important to him -- pass blocking, game day -- but others are not, such as practices and run blocking.'"

This is interesting for Chiefs Kingdom on a couple of levels.

First, the "character concerns" quoted by Fowler did begin to emerge in draft rumors closer to the event. However, nothing was ever defined, giving only vague notions that felt more like a draft smokescreen than anything.

Head coach Andy Reid and general manager Brett Veach made it clear they did their homework here and spoke with Simmons multiple times leading up to the draft, including personal visits, interviews, and more. If there was anything of substance in this area on Simmons, the Chiefs would have undoubtedly sniffed it out and examined it for themselves.

Secondly, the injury concerns have been the primary sticking point for any criticism of the Chiefs' pick, but instead it sounds as if that was secondary to more than just K.C. If that's the case, then perhaps any medical issues aren't as big as they've been made out to be and Chiefs fans can be even more hopeful that returning to form will be a given.

Simmons was commonly hailed as perhaps the most naturally gifted tackle in the draft class, which would normally put him in range to be a top 5-10 draft selection. Any ability of Simmons to reach that ceiling will come down to whether the Chiefs' investigatory process can be trusted or not. Given the track record of recent success, Chiefs fans should feel just fine about Josh Simmons' future.