The Kansas City Chiefs filled a major position of need when they [selected Ohio State offensive tackle Josh Simmons](https://arrowheadaddict.com/josh-simmons-exactly-who-chiefs-needed-even-if-it-felt-boring-01jsngs7m93n) with the 32nd pick of the 2025 NFL Draft. The move was widely praised by both fans and experts alike. Simmons was viewed as a potential top-ten talent who slid because of injury concerns.
The combination of KC's need for a long-term answer at left tackle and Simmons' high-upside potential was seen as a perfect fit and well worth the risk at the back end of the first round. Now the question becomes whether that risk will pay off for the Chiefs.
While it's fine to state that Simmons showed early first-round talent on his tape, the fact of the matter is that the NFL decided he was worth the 32nd overall pick. Some prospects go at the end of the first round because of injury concerns, some because of character concerns, some because of positional importance, and some just because teams didn't think they were good enough players to go earlier in the first round.
What does recent history say about the hit rate of late 1st round offensive tackles?
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Regardless of why Josh Simmons went at the end of the first round, I wanted to know how often late first-round offensive tackles pan out. I know that I am guilty of just assuming that a prospect I think highly of (like I do Simmons) will do well in the NFL, but history says that this isn't always the case.
Every year, there are highly drafted prospects that lots of people are high on who bust in the NFL for one reason or another. So today I thought I'd take a look at a recent ten-year period and look at all the offensive tackles who were drafted around where Josh Simmons was.
I wanted to really focus in on the range where Simmons went, so I limited the range to picks 21–37. That is ten picks ahead of where Simmons went and five picks behind. When looking at the draft results, offensive tackles taken before pick 21 seemed like “safer” picks than Simmons. However, I still did a bigger range of picks ahead of him than behind because it felt like those players were viewed more similarly to Simmons than most of the players who went after pick 37. At that point, a lot of the tackles started to feel more “projecty.”
The advantage of this is that we will really look at the offensive tackles who were valued on draft day similarly to Simmons. The downside is that it limits the sample size a little.
The ten-year range I looked at was the 2014–2023 draft classes. With the 2024 class only having one season under their belt, it felt a little too early to make a call on whether players were hits or not. That ten-year range of drafts gave me 15 offensive tackles who were taken in picks 21–37. Those players (by year) were:
### **2014**
No tackles taken in that range
### **2015**
* Cedric Ogbuehi - Cincinnati Bengals (No. 21)
* D.J. Humphries - Arizona Cardinals - pick 24
* Donovan Smith - Tampa Bay Buccaneers - pick 34
### **2016**
No tackles taken in that range
### **2017**
* Ryan Ramczyk - New Orleans Saints - pick 32
* Cam Robinson - Jacksonville Jaguars - pick 34
### **2018**
* Isaiah Wynn - New England Patriots - pick 23
### **2019**
* Andre Dillard - Philadelphia Eagles - pick 22
* Tytus Howard - Houston Texans - pick 23
* Kaleb McGary - Atlanta Falcons - pick 31
* Jawaan Taylor - Jacksonville Jaguars - pick 35
* Greg Little - Carolina Panthers - pick 37
### **2020**
* Isaiah Wilson - Tennesseee Titans - pick 29
### **2021**
* Christian Darrisaw - Minnesota Vikings - pick 23
### **2022**
* Tyler Smith - Dallas Cowboys - pick 24
### **2023**
* Anton Harrison - Jacksonville Jaguars - pick 27
While this gets a little subjective at this point, I'm going to divide those 15 offensive tackles into busts and hits. For me, if a player was able to hold down a starting job for multiple seasons, that is a hit, even if their level of play isn't fantastic. Some hits are singles and some are home runs, but I'm just trying to see what percentage of these players were multi-year starting tackles for the teams that drafted them. A couple of them were borderline, but here are my results:
### 5 Busts (33.3%)
* Isaiah Wilson
* Andre Dillard
* Greg Little
* Isaiah Wynn
* Cedric Ogbuehi
### 10 Hits (66.7%):
* Anton Harrison
* Tyler Smith
* Christian Darrisaw
* Kaleb McGary
* Jawaan Taylor
* Tytus Howard
* Ryan Ramczyk
* Cam Robinson
* Donovan Smith
* D.J. Humphries
Again, I know these evaluations are subjective, but I feel like that is a fair assessment. You can make an argument that Isaiah Wynn started an average of 10 games per season for his rookie contract and had some solid seasons, but for the 23rd pick in the draft, I think Patriots fans are universally disappointed in that pick. The other busts are pretty hard to argue. The players on the hit list seem pretty hard to argue against as well. All of them have either earned second contracts as starting tackles or are well on their way to doing so.
That gives offensive tackles taken in the same range as Josh Simmons a 66.7 percent hit rate over these ten years. That is a significantly better hit rate than that of all NFL first-round picks, which, depending on what information you use, is generally thought to be between 50–55 percent. So while the list of tackles drafted around where Josh Simmons was isn’t exactly a who's who of future Hall of Famers, it is a list where two-thirds of the players became solid NFL starters.
In the coming weeks, I'm going to do this same kind of look into players taken at the same position and spot in the draft for all of KC's 2025 draft picks, and I can guarantee you we won't see a hit rate this high again for any of the other picks.
While at least one [NFL insider thinks Simmons may not be ready to play right away as a rookie](https://arrowheadaddict.com/nfl-insider-throws-cold-water-top-chiefs-rookie-starting-week-1), it certainly seems like Kansas City has a shot to have finally found their left tackle of the future. While nothing is a sure thing, at least we now know that recent history says that the numbers are on KC's side.