KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas City Chiefs first-round draft pick, offensive tackle Josh Simmons, spoke to the media today about how he feels about his progression so far through training camp.

According to Simmons, he’s been focusing on the metal side of the game, learning how NFL defenses operate to do his job more effectively.

“Right now, it’s really understanding defenses, that way I can play a lot faster,” he said when asked what he’s focused on.

“Like, if I can see a front and anticipate that they may do a stunt, or a blitz, or a defensive end might drop. Then I can easily kind of help Kingsley (Suamataia) and communicate stuff like that.”

Additionally, Simmons showed a quality that most high-level athletes possess: coachability. He said that being able to ask the coaching staff questions has been invaluable.

“So, it’s like the best resource any rookie can have. Just having that in your back pocket (and) asking after a pass rush, ‘What did I do wrong here? How can I fix it?’ and then going to the next rep and then making those corrections. It’s amazing,” Simmons explained.

It’s not just the coaching staff, either. Simmons went on to say that veterans like Creed Humphrey, Trey Smith and Jaylon Moore have helped get him up to speed as well.

Simmons said he knows that they’ve been through the same struggles as him, making it easy to trust and commit to the processes they’ve found to work.

“They’ve seen it all, they’ve made the rookie mistakes, so they’re trying to help me, so I don’t make them, or I’m at least ready for those ‘welcome to the NFL’ moments,” he said.

Earlier in the day, Head Coach Andy Reid commented on Simmons’ progress, saying, “he’s done a nice job with what we’ve asked of him.”