KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) - Early Sunday morning, ESPN and NFL Network insiders Ian Rapoport and Mike Garafolo reported that Kansas City Chiefs left tackle Josh Simmons was told to leave a team meeting by head coach Andy Reid and quarterback Patrick Mahomes just prior to the team placing him on injured reserve.
The report was a rare leak from inside the Chiefs’ facility and a peek into the frustrating situation the organization found itself in with the injured former first-round pick.
On Wednesday, Mahomes was asked about the report as he addressed the media for the first time since a blowout ‘Sunday Night Football’ loss to the Seattle Seahawks.
“Stuff like that doesn’t really bother me,” Mahomes said of the report, “because I’m so in the moment and in the team. When you’re in this building, you don’t even really hear stuff like that unless (Chiefs Vice President of Football Communications Brad Gee) tells you that stuff.”
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Simmons, who has dealt with a back injury since the middle of August, was placed on injured reserve a day after the alleged incident, which Mahomes did not deny.
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“We’ve had the right conversations now. We’re moving in the right direction,” said Mahomes, who in his 10th season with the Chiefs is also a team captain. “You have to have hard conversations at some point and I think we’ve had those. We’ve had great conversations after, and we’re moving in the right direction and that’ll be great for the team.”
Through his first year-and-a-half with the Chiefs, Simmons has played in just eight of a possible 23 games. His injured reserve stint will extend that participation report to absences in at least eight of his first 26 possible games with Kansas City and could be further if Simmons fails to return to play for the Chiefs this season.
While Mahomes didn’t deny the report, he still said it prompts conversations in the Chiefs facility on what gets shared.
“I think we’ve built this culture of coming together as a family and doing whatever we can to make sure not only the player but the person is going in the right direction,” Mahomes said. “You can have those hard conversations and those good conversations come after that. It’s not always great in life in general.
“You have to be able to have those conversations so that you can have better conversations going forward. We have open communication here in general and I think that’s something that Coach Reid has always preached, but you want to keep those conversations in the building so that’s something we’ll be better at moving forward.”
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