*****The Josh Simmons Thread*****

[Dante84]

More to come!

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— Patrick Mahomes II (@PatrickMahomes) April 25, 2025

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.

— Jeremy Fowler (@JFowlerESPN) April 25, 2025

the #chiefs get LT Josh Simmons out of Ohio State. If Simmons didn't suffer a torn patellar tendon he would have been the first tackle off the board. I had one team tell me he was the most athletic and talented tackle tape they watched. There are some maturity issues, but this…

— James Palmer (@JamesPalmerTV) April 25, 2025

The #Chiefs have selected #OSU OT Josh Simmons at No. 32, a player recovering nicely from a torn patellar tendon. They are comfortable with his rehab and did endless homework on it. https://t.co/awdb0JhPed

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) April 25, 2025

The #Chiefs are selecting Ohio State LT Josh Simmons at No. 32 to close out Round 1.

A key addition to bolster the offensive line in front of Patrick Mahomes. pic.twitter.com/oBx2CjzmCe

— Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) April 25, 2025

[RunKC]

We can argue the injury all we want but there’s no doubt in my mind that this kid goes the Patriots at 4 if he never got injured. He has elite traits, excellent footwork, good technique and a good anchor.

There’s a reason a lot of well know media folks and Brandon Thorn love this kids talent. It’s just the injury and character concerns (which Andy has always taken on).

If they are right about his knee this is going to be the best pick in this draft of any team.

[Imon Yourside]

Originally Posted by Hammock Parties

never seen an OT with a face this lean

is he on ozempic?

A message from the man himself ��️ pic.twitter.com/MzVeBlApEk

— Kansas City Chiefs (@Chiefs) April 25, 2025

What a handsome well spoken gentleman, welcome aboard brah.

[kccrow]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

A couple of comments about those injury stats.

First, statistics on "returned to play" are not definitive. Different internet sites show different numbers, but in general roster retention from year to year is about 70 percent or less. I'm being conservative here since most sites show it lower. So if 70 percent of players come back that means that ANY group of 17 players will have 5 who don't return to play the following year. So that means your baseline is that 12 of the 17 return to play. If the post-injury guys come back at a 6 of 17 rate, that's a 50 percent return from injury. Not ideal, of course, but a lot better than 20 or 30 percent.

Second, the 20 to 30 percent figures are from the instant of injury. So when a guy is down on the ground, you can point at him and say, "He's got a 20 percent chance of coming back." From that point on, your knowledge gets better. Two years later, you can point at the same guy and confidently say with 100 percent certainty that he came back or he didn't. So during that two year period, your likelihood of guessing correctly gets constantly better, because you're moving down a timeline from being unsure to being sure. Since Mr. Simmons is X months down the timeline from injury, the odds of guessing his likelihood of returning are a lot better than 20 percent.

Put another way, let's say that we're firing ten simultaneous arrows at a target 100 yards away, and we have a 20 percent chance of hitting the bullseye when we fire each one. Two of them will hit and eight of them will miss.

Now imagine that we can freeze time when those arrows are 25 yards from our bow. We can look at the ten arrows and pretty confidently pick some that are clearly off target, and weed them out. Now we let them move another 25 yards and we do it again. We weed out more arrows that are off target and keep watching the ones that look close. We do it again 25 yards later and we can pretty confidently pick the two arrows that are going to hit the bullseye.

We're not evaluating Mr. Simmons at the moment that his arrow was fired. We're evaluating him well down range, which means we're better able to predict if he's on target or off.

This is going to be a big win for us. The Chiefs organization is competent and well run. I don't care if teams like the Chargers or Bears make a different decision, because they're usually going to be wrong.

They absolutely do define RTP in the study.

We shall see what happens. My trust level on this pick is 0%. How's that statistic.

[Simplicity]

Originally Posted by kccrow

Not a single ****ing brain cell in my body can support this pick right now. Not one. Absolutely ****ing mind boggling. I can't express how much I hate it.

I've seen a lot of shitty picks from this franchise in the past but this one has the potential to be among the top 5 absolute worst ever at an absolutely critical juncture.

They need to pray to baby Jesus that he defies all odds, and those odds are horrendous.

Overreaction x10000

[Rain Man]

Actually, there's another issue on "return to play". Probably 50 percent of the league plays fewer snaps than the previous year just due to random variation. So if you take a sample of healthy players, roughly half of them will play fewer snaps than the previous year.

[Tribal Warfare]

[kcfan75]

Originally Posted by kccrow

They absolutely do define RTP in the study.

We shall see what happens. My trust level on this pick is 0%. How's that statistic.

I'm just wondering, but do your stats compare a 34-year-old on his third contract and how he recovered from it compared to a 22-year-old out of college who is basically looking to make it?

Technically, this guy isn't even an adult until 3 more years. It's easier to recover the younger you are.

[Yo Murphy.]

He'll go down as the best tackle in Chiefs history ahead of Willie Roaf and John Alt. Bookmark this.

[JohnnyV13]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

A couple of comments about those injury stats.

First, statistics on "returned to play" are not definitive. Different internet sites show different numbers, but in general roster retention from year to year is about 70 percent or less. I'm being conservative here since most sites show it lower. So if 70 percent of players come back that means that ANY group of 17 players will have 5 who don't return to play the following year. So that means your baseline is that 12 of the 17 return to play. If the post-injury guys come back at a 6 of 17 rate, that's a 50 percent return from injury. Not ideal, of course, but a lot better than 20 or 30 percent.

Second, the 20 to 30 percent figures are from the instant of injury. So when a guy is down on the ground, you can point at him and say, "He's got a 20 percent chance of coming back." From that point on, your knowledge gets better. Two years later, you can point at the same guy and confidently say with 100 percent certainty that he came back or he didn't. So during that two year period, your likelihood of guessing correctly gets constantly better, because you're moving down a timeline from being unsure to being sure. Since Mr. Simmons is X months down the timeline from injury, the odds of guessing his likelihood of returning are a lot better than 20 percent.

Put another way, let's say that we're firing ten simultaneous arrows at a target 100 yards away, and we have a 20 percent chance of hitting the bullseye when we fire each one. Two of them will hit and eight of them will miss.

Now imagine that we can freeze time when those arrows are 25 yards from our bow. We can look at the ten arrows and pretty confidently pick some that are clearly off target, and weed them out. Now we let them move another 25 yards and we do it again. We weed out more arrows that are off target and keep watching the ones that look close. We do it again 25 yards later and we can pretty confidently pick the two arrows that are going to hit the bullseye.

We're not evaluating Mr. Simmons at the moment that his arrow was fired. We're evaluating him well down range, which means we're better able to predict if he's on target or off.

This is going to be a big win for us. The Chiefs organization is competent and well run. I don't care if teams like the Chargers or Bears make a different decision, because they're usually going to be wrong.

Rainman, you've CLOSE to the real issue here, but you're only hitting the edges of the target.

Part of the problem is, most people don't know much about study design. I know you do marketing analysis, so you get MOST of it, but do you have much of a background in hard science?

The key problem is this is nothing more than what doctors call a pilot study. Meaning, a small sample of cases to see if further research is warranted.

Not only is the sample size way too small for percentages to mean much, MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY CHANGES RAPIDLY.

So, they had to go back to 2009 to get even a handful of cases, and surgical techniques could have vastly improved over 16 years. Thus, the prognosis for a patient in 2009 could be vastly different than in 2022 (at the end of sample).

For example, if you asked about the prognosis of a pitcher with a rotator cuff injury in 1974, well....a sample of orthopedic literature would have said, "give up, he's toast." As we all know, Tommy Jobn went on to win more game AFTER Dr. Jobe repaired his rotator cuff than he won before his shoulder surgery on his way to the HOF.

16 years later, it was a vastly different world.

Now, I don't know if that's the case for patellar knee injuries. But crow doesn't either. However, the Chiefs' team doctor presumably knows the state of the art and Veach has better sources of information than any of us.

[Tribal Warfare]

Originally Posted by Yo Murphy.

He'll go down as the best tackle in Chiefs history ahead of Willie Roaf and John Alt. Bookmark this.

as always we wish for the best that all Chiefs draft picks are future HOFers

[dlphg9]

Originally Posted by kcfan75

I'm just wondering, but do your stats compare a 34-year-old on his third contract and how he recovered from it compared to a 22-year-old out of college who is basically looking to make it?

Technically, this guy isn't even an adult until 3 more years. It's easier to recover the younger you are.

Yeah I'm curious about the age of these other players that had this injury.

One thing that worries me is that no other team thought it'd be worth the risk to try and take him in the 1st round. I'm sure multiple teams looked him over and KC was the only one that thought he would get back to previous form?

It is really concerning because of the guys we could have drafted. There were several players that fell that would have been great additions. I wanted Burden so damn bad, too.

[BossChief]

Here’s some optimism to counterbalance the hand-wringing over Josh Simmons’ patella injury! The doomsayers act like it’s a career-ender, but let’s get real: Correll Buckhalter tore his patellar tendon in 2004, worked with trainer Rick Burkholder—yes, that one- and came back to torch defenses with 5.0, 4.9, and 5.3 yards per carry from 2006-2008. Simmons, a 21-year-old freak, is already squatting 225 pounds six months post-surgery and got the green light for a mid-April pro day. With Burkholder’s Midas touch (remember Mahomes’ three-week patella comeback in 2019?) and cutting-edge rehab, Simmons is storming toward training camp, ready to claim his throne as an elite left tackle.

This ain’t just about recovery—Simmons is a rare breed worth the No. 31 pick. His 2024 Ohio State tape? Pure dominance—lightning footwork, a brick-wall anchor, and a nasty streak that screams, “You ain’t touching my QB!” He was LT1 before the injury, and the Chiefs, with Veach and Burkholder running the show, snatched a future All-Pro while others slept. Like Trey Smith in 2021, Simmons is a “risk” that’ll make rivals cry. He’s built to stonewall Myles Garrett and T.J. Watt, locking down Mahomes’ blindside for a decade. Chiefs Kingdom, quit doubting and start believing in our next cornerstone. Simmons is coming, and he’s going to help transform this offense back into a machine.

Josh Simmons’ patella injury is a tired scare tactic—Buckhalter’s comeback under Rick Burkholder proves it’s beatable, and Simmons is crushing his rehab. At 21, with elite skills and a mean streak, he’s the perfect No. 31 pick to protect Mahomes from AFC pass rushers. The Chiefs’ savvy move secures a franchise left tackle for the dynasty, so haters can step aside while Chiefs Kingdom gets loud!

[Hammock Parties]

Originally Posted by BossChief

Here’s some optimism to counterbalance the hand-wringing over Josh Simmons’ patella injury! The doomsayers act like it’s a career-ender, but let’s get real: Correll Buckhalter tore his patellar tendon in 2004, worked with trainer Rick Burkholder—yes, that one- and came back to torch defenses with 5.0, 4.9, and 5.3 yards per carry from 2006-2008. Simmons, a 21-year-old freak, is already squatting 225 pounds six months post-surgery and got the green light for a mid-April pro day. With Burkholder’s Midas touch (remember Mahomes’ three-week patella comeback in 2019?) and cutting-edge rehab, Simmons is storming toward training camp, ready to claim his throne as an elite left tackle.

Andy and Rick know.

[kcfan75]

Originally Posted by dlphg9

Yeah I'm curious about the age of these other players that had this injury.

One thing that worries me is that no other team thought it'd be worth the risk to try and take him in the 1st round. I'm sure multiple teams looked him over and KC was the only one that thought he would get back to previous form?

It is really concerning because of the guys we could have drafted. There were several players that fell that would have been great additions. I wanted Burden so damn bad, too.

I'm not sure that it matters, Trey Smith was a 2nd to 3rd round pick and we got him in the sixth due to medical concerns. I'm not saying this will pan out the same, but if it does it's a grand slam.

[JohnnyV13]

Originally Posted by duncan_idaho

I’d have more confidence in a medical evaluation here if they were able to test strength and explosion in the leg.

If him squatting 225 pounds is being touted by his PR team yesterday as positive sign of recovery, I have hard time believing they ran him through tests that would show if the tendon functions as well as it did before the injury. Im not a doctor or PT, but the PhD PT I know told me that’s the true test of the repair - not just is the tendon whole/did it work/is the joint clean, but can the tendon do as much as before - and that the answer has always been that it is less than it was.

I did knock out some 225-lb one-leg squats at the gym today, though, in Simmons honor.

How did you manage that without stumbling over your 20 inch PP?

Of course EVERYONE on CP can squat 600lbs, so I'm not really impressed.