Chiefs: Josh Simmons would never have fallen to us without his knee injury

Chiefs head coach Andy Reid said that the team "definitely" thinks offensive tackle Josh Simmons will be ready for training camp after tearing his patellar tendon while playing for Ohio State last year and the team thinks that injury is a big reason why Simmons will be at their camp.

The Chiefs took Simmons with the 32nd overall pick and Chiefs director of player personnel/college scouting Ryne Nutt said in a Monday video conference that the work Simmons did when healthy rated him as "one of the better [tackles] in the last few years." He compared Simmons to Vikings tackle Christian Darrisaw and Chargers tackle Rashawn Slater, who went earlier in the first round of their drafts and Nutt said that the injury was the only reason he was around for the Chiefs.

"You can watch those six games and it’s not unfair to say he was the best tackle up to this point," Nutt said. "It stinks he got injured because I do think — I guess it’s good for us because we got him and that’s the only way we would have gotten him."

Nutt noted that "it stinks" for Simmons because it means less money out of the gate, but making good on the Chiefs' belief in his ability would set Simmons up to make plenty of money in the future.