We’ve been putting the wrong Chiefs offensive lineman under the microscope
The rookie left tackle, the one whose every move has inherited microscopic analysis for the last 144 days, pushed aside an edge rusher. Pretty easily, too.
It was a clear win in the pass-protection business, and Chiefs rookie Josh Simmons has had a lot of them in the initial two preseason games — but, oh wait, the left guard next to him got cleanly beat on the same play, forcing quarterback Gardner Minshew to leave the pocket and buy more time.
Minshew needed to hurry the throw, leaving a receiver one yard shy of a first down. The Chiefs wouldn’t convert.
And you can’t help but wonder: Have we been watching the wrong offensive lineman this closely for the past 114 days?
The Seahawks blitzed the Chiefs here in Seattle, a 33-16 final with more injuries than bright spots, on a night in which Kansas City brought Patrick Mahomes on the flight but asked him to sit out the fight.
That subtracted some meaning from an exhibition game that didn’t have much of it to spare. But there is one spot — or one collection of spots, rather — we can return to the nano-sized analysis.
What’s the progress of the new-look pieces of the offensive line puzzle?
That answer does not rest solely with this year’s rookie left tackle. It’s last year’s rookie left tackle — now the second-year left guard, Kingsley Suamataia.
A couple of things have been made clearer through a month of training camp in St. Joseph and two preseason trips to Arizona and Seattle, respectively.
• It’s an expected work in progress.
• That’s more true for one player than the other, and it’s not the rookie.
We have to evaluate the new-look left side separately, because they have separated themselves. Simmons definitely wasn’t perfect Friday — he was close to a holding call once, and maybe even twice — but his talent has become more and more obvious. “An athletic freak,” a teammate called him after the game.
Suamataia had another up-and-down night. The Chiefs opened the game with a pass play, and Suamataia finished that play on his backside, shoved there by nose tackle Byron Murphy II. Suamataia might’ve had his feet tangled with a teammate, but those feet had already been driven six yards behind the line of scrimmage.
The starting linemen played nearly a dozen snaps, and they concluded with another pass play. That’s the play that led this column — Suamataia finished it with his back facing the line of scrimmage, turned to see whether the man he’d allowed to squeeze through the line of scrimmage would get to the quarterback.
“I still got stuff to improve on,” Suamataia said. “Still trying to get the feel of that guard stuff, but overall, just glad to be out there and give my (all) every time I’m out there.”
Still trying to get the feel of that guard stuff.
Oh, yeah.
Can we consider the full context? It’s important to remember this is so fresh, so new, to both of these players, and maybe even more fresh, more new to the second-year lineman than the first. Simmons has never played a snap in an NFL regular season, and that’s a real thing that will require more than a couple of preseason showings, but he’s at least most recently played left tackle.
Suamataia came into the draft as a tackle and tried left tackle a year ago, when the Chiefs benched him midway through his second week on the job. This isn’t a second chance. It’s a new chance altogether.
It’s probably that learning curve that prompted Andy Reid’s grading curve after the game. “I want to take a look at it and see how we handled it, but I thought they did OK, that group,” he said when my colleague, Vahe Gregorian, asked him about Suamataia.
Suamataia actually dominated the running game Friday. He was the player driving the opponent backward, and he did it three times. He might’ve been the best run-blocker on the field. There was an aggression to those reps that didn’t appear in the pass sets.
It’s another way of pointing out it’s all a process, one that could use a larger sample size in the Chiefs’ preseason finale next week against the Bears at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium — before it gets a far more important sample size in Brazil.
It’s a reminder of the effects of a new situation.
The Chiefs will further dive into the film this weekend, maybe on an overnight flight home that lands after the sun comes up. But they won’t be the only ones evaluating it.
As our eyes have been fixated on Simmons, and some have gushed about his progression as a rookie, you can bet the Chargers, Eagles, Giants and Ravens have fixated on his neighbor. The offensive line can be a weak-link proposition — in which defensive coordinators will find a weakness and work all day to exploit it.
It’s on the Chiefs — and two players — to prevent them from having much to exploit.
This story was originally published August 16, 2025 at 6:00 AM.