Josh Simmons Was Told to Leave a Chiefs Meeting by Reid and Mahomes, Then Apologized

Andy Reid told Josh Simmons to put his feet down. Simmons said he could not sit any other way. Patrick Mahomes backed his coach, Simmons left the room, and by the next day he was on injured reserve. That is the sequence in the NFL Network report that returned to the news on Tuesday, when Ian Rapoport said on ESPN’s show that he does not know if Simmons plays for the Chiefs again, and it is worth telling carefully, because the story has three layers that are easy to blur: what witnesses say happened in the room, what the team has confirmed on the record about the injury, and what Reid has now said publicly about the two being connected. They are not the same kind of fact, and this article keeps them apart.

What actually happened in the meeting room?

It started with posture and became a standoff. Simmons was sitting with his feet up in the offense’s meeting room when Reid asked him to put his feet down, according to multiple sources who witnessed the interaction, TSN reports, carrying the NFL Network report from Ian Rapoport and Mike Garafolo. Simmons pushed back, saying he had to sit that way because his back and hips were aching. Reid instructed him to get treatment from the athletic trainers if he was indeed in pain. The exchange continued and disrupted the meeting, sources said, until Mahomes echoed Reid’s sentiment for Simmons to leave the room and go get treatment.

Simmons left the room but did not leave the building, and later in the day he apologized to Reid and team leadership, saying he could have handled the situation better. That apology matters to the shape of the story: it happened the same day as the meeting, before anything else, and it means the incident as reported ends with contrition, not defiance. NBC Sports’ account of the report matches TSN’s on every beat: feet up, the back-pain answer, the treatment instruction, Mahomes telling Simmons to leave and stop disrupting the meeting, and the apology to Reid and team leaders afterwards.

The reporting also explains the odd injury-report line that accompanied it. The Chiefs listed Simmons as missing practice that Wednesday for “back/not injury related-personal,” and that wording invited exactly the speculation it got. Burkholder, the team’s vice president of sports medicine and performance, told reporters the next day that the personal reason was the team giving Simmons time to talk to his family and representatives about the next steps in his rehab process. The personal tag was about a decision, not a mystery, and the team said the injured reserve move itself was solely because of the bulging, herniated disk in his lower back.

Why is Simmons on injured reserve at all?

Because a back problem that started in August never cleared. Simmons reported discomfort in one of his calves during training camp, TSN reports, and the team’s athletic trainers suspected it came from his back. An MRI confirmed a bulging disk, Simmons sought multiple opinions, and the recommendation was rehab over surgery. He returned to practice after the Chiefs’ Week 5 bye, when another MRI showed the disk had improved, but he was still in pain, so the team placed him on injured reserve to give rehab more time. Surgery is not expected, and the earliest he can return is Week 11, when Kansas City hosts Arizona on November 22.

That timeline is the confirmed medical record, and it is what Reid pointed to when he addressed the story publicly. After Kansas City’s 20-3 loss to Seattle on Sunday night, a game that also produced the Seahawks’ friendship-bracelet troll of the Chiefs, Reid faced questions about the report and separated the two events plainly. “He’s got a bad back,” Reid said, Heavy reports. “Things happen. That’s not the reason he was placed on IR. He’s got to get it worked out, that’s the main thing. I’ll just leave it at that, that’s just where we’re at with it.” It is a short denial, and it closes the one question the timing raised: whether a Wednesday argument put a player on injured reserve on Thursday. Reid says it did not.

Why did the story come back on Tuesday?

Because Rapoport raised the longer question on television. Speaking on ESPN’s “Big Day with Peter Schrager” on October 27, Rapoport said, “There are a lot of questions about Josh Simmons, who is as talented as a left tackle as you can possibly get. He is a stud as a player. I don’t know if he plays for the Chiefs again. I don’t know when he plays for the Chiefs again.” That is a different claim from the meeting report, and it should be read as what it is: an insider’s doubt about a player’s future, not a report that the team has decided anything. No team decision about Simmons’s future has been reported, and Reid’s own public line is about the back, not about the player’s standing.

The doubt lands because the playing record is so thin. Simmons, the last pick of the first round in the 2025 draft out of Ohio State, has played in only eight of 22 possible games since joining Kansas City, TSN reports. He missed time as a rookie for family reasons, then dislocated and fractured his wrist against Dallas on Thanksgiving and missed the rest of the season after surgery. He has not appeared in a game this season and has not practiced since August, NBC Sports reports. A first-round left tackle drafted to protect Mahomes’s blind side for years has, so far, protected it for eight games, and that is the real story underneath the meeting-room anecdote: a premium pick whose availability, not his talent, is the question.

Who fills in while Simmons is out?

An undrafted rookie, which says something about where the Chiefs are on the offensive line. Kahlil Benson has served as Mahomes’s blindside protector this season, TSN reports, and veteran Jaylon Moore has been the primary starting right tackle. Moore missed the Seattle game because of a concussion, so Joshua Ezeudu started at right tackle on Sunday night. The line that was supposed to be anchored by a first-round pick is currently held together by a rookie, a veteran fill-in and a backup, and it held up well enough for Kansas City to reach the Seattle game unbeaten before the 20-3 loss ended that run.

That context also explains why a meeting-room story travels as far as this one has. Coaches asserting authority is not unusual, and it is the same territory as the fines handed to three head coaches for their dealings with officials, where the league, not the locker room, drew the line, and the sideline blowups that become their own story when an owner or a coach loses his temper in public. What makes the Simmons story different is the quarterback’s role in it: Mahomes is not a bystander in the report, he is the voice that ends the exchange, and a franchise quarterback telling a first-round pick to leave the room is a rarer and more consequential image than a coach raising his voice. It is also, for now, only a reported image, with Simmons’s same-day apology as its coda and Reid’s denial as its official response.

What happens next for Simmons?

Rehab first, then a Week 11 decision, with the longer question still open. The medical path is clear: rehab over surgery, a return window against Arizona on November 22, and a back that has to respond before any of that matters. The football question is less clear, and it is the one Rapoport put on television: whether Simmons, once healthy, walks back into the left tackle job, or whether the combination of missed time and a public incident has changed how the team sees him. Nothing in the reporting answers that yet, and this article will not guess at it. The confirmed facts are the meeting as witnesses described it, the apology the same day, the injured reserve move for the disk, and Reid’s denial that the two are connected. Everything else, including Rapoport’s doubt, is labelled for what it is, and the next reporting, whether it is a comment from Simmons himself or a return to practice, will say which way the story goes. For now, the careful sentence is the one the record supports: a talented tackle with a bad back had a bad day in a meeting room, apologized for it, and is now on injured reserve while his team waits to see if his back, and his standing, recover together. Readers tracking how quickly a podium moment becomes a viral clip will recognise the pattern from the press-conference moment that became a meme and from the broadcast argument that became a rules debate: the incident is small, the reaction is large, and the truth sits in the gap between the report and the response.