After the Kansas City Chiefs’ Wednesday injury report revealed that left tackle Josh Simmons did not practice with both a “back” and “personal” designation, the ears of Chiefs Kingdom perked up. On Thursday, the team had Vice President of Sports Medicine and Performance Rick Burkholder go to the podium to explain the setback for Simmons, who practiced in a limited capacity last week.
Burkholder revealed that Simmons would be placed on the Reserve/Injured list because his rehabilitation has “plateaued.”
Here is the entire timeline Burkholder provided on Simmons’ back injury, starting during training camp in St. Joseph, Missouri.
“On August 17th, Josh came to me with calf discomfort, feeling that he couldn’t post on a single leg in training camp practices,” Burkholder told local media. “This was the same leg that he had knee surgery on in 2024. He was evaluated by our physicians who, thankfully, suspected a low-back injury instead of a lower-leg or knee ailment.”
In 2024, playing for Ohio State, Simmons tore his patellar tendon, which ended his season.
“We obtained an MRI in St. Joe that confirmed that he had a bulging, herniated disc in his lumbar spine,” Burkholder clarified. “That disc problem was higher up than what we normally see in our offensive linemen, which complicated the case.”
“We recommended a second opinion, as we always do with all of our injured guys, and through his agent and Josh, they selected a spine specialist in California that we have used previously, and that is really well-known in the NFL. He went there and was evaluated, and the recommendation was to do rehabilitation — not surgery — with the intent that we would do an MRI in the future to see what the disc looked like.”
“Josh continued to progress, and the repeat MRI a few weeks later showed that the disc had improved, so no surgery was recommended and rehab would continue.”
With no surgery necessary, head coach Andy Reid said Simmons had a “ramp-up” period starting with the limited practices last week. That process has now come to a halt.
“Josh worked his tail off; he worked diligently with my staff every day and has improved to the point where he returned to practice in a limited capacity last week. However, we feel that he has plateaued in the rehab process as he’s trying to get to the final steps of recovery with return to competition, and he’s just not there yet.”
Burkholder emphasized that final statement: “He’s just not there yet.” Simmons’ job on the field is to wrestle the world’s top athletes weighing over 250 pounds up to 80 times a game. His back is not ready to do that this week, and it won’t be ready for the next few weeks either.
“After discussion with Josh yesterday, we gave him some time to talk with his family and representatives to investigate next steps as he goes through this process, and that’s why he was listed as both personal and with the back injury… he took the day off to get with his people.”
“It was decided and agreed upon by everybody — his people, his agent, him, myself, Andy, and Veach — that he should be placed on IR to give him more time to return to full function. He’ll continue with the rehab process with the goal of returning to play at the high level that he achieved in the past.”
If Simmons is placed on IR today, the earliest he could return is the Week 11 home game against the Arizona Cardinals.
“I give a lot of credit to Josh, my docs, my physicians and my staff,” Burkholder said. “I just give them a ton of credit for navigating through this injury to the point where surgery is not recommended, and that he just needs more time to return to full function.”
