Rams 1st round pick, #13…Ty Simpson

Albert Breer: https://www.si.com/nfl/albert-breer-nfl-draft-takeaways-rams-ty-simpson

Ty Simpson stands out on tape

The Rams saw things some others didn’t in Ty Simpson, and we’ll see how that turns out. And what they saw, for the most part, was based plainly on Simpson’s body of work.

That’s not a mistake either. That’s by design.

Sean McVay’s tape study began a week after the Super Bowl, and his method, when he gets going on the college quarterbacks, is to have his first exposure to them come on the film, and the film alone. Simpson was the first guy he watched. What he saw was eye-opening. Yes, the body of work—15 starts—was short. But as he and the Rams came to see it, those 15 starts had more translatable work in them than other college QBs may compile in 30.

Alabama OC Ryan Grubb put a lot on Simpson, and the Rams felt like the beneficiaries of it in the evaluation. Simpson was playing under center and off play-action. He was redirecting protections and going through full-field progressions, and activating the same sort of concepts he’d have to in their offense. You saw him in quick game and off five- and seven-step timing. You saw an NFL rhythm-and-timing passer. Drew Brees set the recent standard for that genre, and they saw Simpson, stylistically, fitting that sort of mold.

No one’s saying Simpson is going to be Brees, to be clear. But if you want to see a path to becoming a high-end NFL quarterback, that’s the one that Simpson could walk.

But maybe most of all, as I’ve heard it, they loved seeing how he got scraped up, and knocked down, and picked himself up. The Tide got beaten up in the season opener against Florida State, a loss that was taken as a referendum on everyone in the program, a year and a half after Nick Saban’s departure. But in that game, Simpson fought to his very last snap, a nine-yard run on fourth-and-10, on which he ran through three tackles. And he rebounded in the weeks to follow, putting on clinics against Wisconsin and Georgia.

Then, there was the way the season came undone, and how Simpson reacted to that. In the Tide’s 10th game, Oklahoma coach Brent Venables blew open a flaw in their empty protection, getting a free runner through consistently and creating a blueprint for others.

The Rams liked how the Bama coaches put a lot on him to begin with, and what the Sooners drew up made things even harder. Simpson kept battling, like an NFL quarterback has to.

And two throws against Auburn brought the whole thing to life.

• The first was on a third-and-4, from the Auburn 6 at the end of the first quarter. Auburn brought six. Inside linebacker Xavier Atkins came clean, and both Tiger edge rushers won quickly, giving Simpson nowhere to step up in the pocket, or to bail from it. Simpson stood in the face of pressure, flicked the ball off his back foot from the 20 to receiver Isaiah Horton, running toward the back left pylon—putting it on his outside shoulder over the top of the coverage, and just past where the corner covering Horton could play it. He knew he’d be open and put a perfect ball on him, off-balance with three defenders in his face.

• The second came with the game tied at 20, and less than four minutes left. Kalen DeBoer showed confidence in Simpson in going for it on fourth-and-2, when he could’ve kicked the go-ahead field goal, and the Auburn defense challenged him right away. The Tide had a stick concept—a two-man route—called to Simpson’s right in a three-by-two look. At the snap, the Tigers had the two receivers to that side covered with three guys. Simpson quickly reset, and got the ball to the third guy in his progression, Horton again running a drag from the opposite side. Not only that, he put the ball on Horton’s front pad, into a short window.

Simpson did that, by the way, on a rough day for the Bama offense, one with a mess of drops from his receivers. He got hit a lot, too. He easily could’ve folded. Instead, he squared his jaw, maintained his body language and kept playing quarterback—which is a key to this, too.

The Rams kept seeing him do just that, and there’s a bit of dying art to playing that way at the college level, which is what made watching Simpson so refreshing for some teams and coaches (and my guess would be that’s what ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky was seeing, too). They could see him reading plays out with his feet, playing with rhythm, getting deep into progressions, anticipating windows coming open and unloading the ball on time.

Now, that’s not to say there wasn’t more work done. The input of the ex-quarterbacks on the staff—Kliff Kingsbury, Dave Ragone and Nathan Scheelhaase—was an invaluable part of the process. The background work was, too, with Crimson Tide sport psychologist Bhrett McCabe allaying concerns over the anxiety Simpson was thought to have battled, telling the Rams that the quarterback was simply a very conscientious kid who cares a lot, while touting his capacity for growth in that area (“He’ll calm down,” he told them) and his resilience.

But where this really began and ended was with what McVay, GM Les Snead and the crew saw on tape, which was a quarterback who could run their offense. Really, it started with the tape, after the reality set in that Jimmy Garoppolo probably wouldn’t return as Matthew Stafford’s backup, all the way back in March. It ended on Thursday, after McVay apprised Stafford of the plan, and the Rams pushed the button on the night’s biggest surprise.

Stafford, to be clear, is still very much the team’s present. And if things work out like that film seemed to show, they’ve now got a lot less to worry about for the future.

"Drafting a QB to be your backup at 13 is rich people problems."

More from @joelklatt on the Rams selecting Ty Simpson in the first round of the NFL Draft and what it means moving forward. pic.twitter.com/XdNNgmsA7t

— The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football on FOX Pod (@JoelKlattShow) April 27, 2026

Zooey wrote:

People seem to believe he is a mid-level guy, but I’m okay with that.

My own take? Some things about him point to a “mid-level guy.” But some things point to him being more than that.

Football IQ plus fast processing under fire plus accuracy plus very good feet/movement plus toughness (he had a terrible OL at Alabama)…plus intangibles.

He could be a “Brock Purdy Plus.” I don’t know how many “plusses.”

I am optimistic about the guy and will need to see some bad stuff in games to lose that view.

InvaderRam wrote:

i’m still not convinced it was the right decision. just a wait and see approach at this point.

I am. They like the guy and they treated the 13th pick as a luxury for the future. They got the pick because they traded the 2025 #1 rather than take Ferguson there, and then got Ferguson anyway.

The Rams are not conventional with draft picks.

They trade up. They trade down. They trade away picks for both name players (Stafford) and guys who hadn’t come through yet (Dotson). And they don’t care if they “reach.” They can afford to “reach” because they have a high powered offense that does not include a single player they drafted themselves in the first round. And that’s because they score higher in the lower rounds than pretty much anybody.

Just my 2 cents. No doubt we will be discussing this issue for years!

…

Zooey wrote:

So I’ll take him over Ryan Leaf.

Well I don’t go THAT far.

InvaderRam wrote:

he keeps tabs. has a chip on his shoulder. there’s a certain level of bradyesque psychopathy to him. if it’s real, it can only be a good thing. not in terms of being a well rounded human being. but in terms of professional athletics, it should be a benefit.

That’s very well said. It’s all probably true too. About Simpson, and about the type. But mostly I just liked the way you said it.

“bradyesque psychopathy” is one of the great phrases in Huddle board history.

…

Ty Simpson pick explained

Jourdan Rodrigue

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7235565/2026/04/28/nfl-draft-ty-simpson-strategies-favorite-classes-tight-ends/?source=emp_shared_article&unlocked_article_code=1.eVA.d9MP.HoU0uf4HKnOc

If there is one thing I’ve learned about the NFL Draft, it’s that everyone is going to argue about it for weeks afterward.

That’s where I come in: I’m not here to change your opinions, but to talk to you about the process behind some of the more interesting moves and trends you watched throughout this year’s draft, and to highlight a few of my favorite classes.

Let’s get right into it and start with the draft’s biggest surprise:

In case you aren’t tired of reading about what I’m calling “Grumpy Gate” — Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay’s sour body language in a news conference after the team selected Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson at pick No. 13 on Thursday night — allow me to make a few notes as someone who once spent a season and an offseason inside the team’s scouting department:

• The Rams do not pick players McVay does not emphatically want, especially in early rounds. He always has a significant say over the first pick they make, after dialogue with and ultimate agreement from general manager Les Snead. McVay may get impatient during the process, and so may Snead — but neither unilaterally makes picks. Both coach and GM would have had to be completely on board for this to happen.

• I do believe McVay was attempting to downplay the pick in general, with reigning MVP Matthew Stafford in mind. McVay wants to be respectful to Stafford, which he has since said publicly, and to avoid the impression that he has put a timer on the rest of Stafford’s career. Unsaid: The two sides have not yet fully agreed on Stafford’s adjusted contract, although a league source said progress has been made.

No, McVay didn’t have to go that far with his mannerisms to show Stafford that respect. Yes, he came off poorly. I have to think that McVay also could have been projecting some defensiveness about the pick in light of the instant reaction to it, and/or something personal could have happened behind the scenes (he alluded to this in a couple of interviews during the coverage of the second and third days of the draft).

I am certain, based on conversations with league and team sources plus a recent conversation with McVay, that he is very high on Simpson. So is Snead. NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport also reported before the draft began that Snead has a relationship with Simpson’s father, who is a college coach, and even was among the voices who told Simpson he could go as early as the first round of this year’s draft.

Ty Simpson told ESPN Radio on Monday that he secretly met with McVay before the draft. That is significant because neither Snead nor McVay typically meets with any prospects, and they don’t attend the scouting combine or other pre-draft events.

Picking him at No. 13 was still a surprise to me, however. The Rams could have addressed upcoming tackle and receiver needs, or they could have traded back for more picks.

• Simpson is a developmental prospect with traits the Rams like but who needs plenty of reps and time behind Stafford. In a best-case scenario for Stafford, Simpson and the Rams, the young quarterback will get that time. McVay stressed that Stafford, 38, will play for L.A. as long as he wants to.

• The rest of the Rams’ team-building, combined with the Simpson pick and the rest of this year’s draft class, tells a story:

After a sprint-rebuild in 2023 and postseason runs in 2024 and 2025, the Rams turned back to the picks-for-players model that helped them win Super Bowl LVI as this offseason began. They recently swapped their other first-round pick in this class for top cornerback Trent McDuffie and then extended him with a four-year, $124 million contract. That already told me that they weren’t stockpiling ammunition for the 2027 quarterback class, like many believed. They also signed free agent cornerback Jaylen Watson to a three-year, $51 million deal and could soon extend priority players out of a strong 2023 draft class.

They will be all-in this season to aim again for a Super Bowl, and if I’m studying their previous pattern in this mode, that could mean more moves may come, and more future picks would be in play, just as they were before the trade deadline in 2021. The Rams previously traded all of their first-round picks up to 2024, all between 2019 and 2021, to help win their last championship.

If that happens, they had better be cost-controlled at quarterback after going all-in this year, and/or on the other side of Stafford’s window — whenever that may be. (I wouldn’t bet that window closes quickly as he seems to hit a new level of play each time he’s challenged by some outside force, which makes this draft pick even more of a risk.) This and last year’s draft classes both hint at a team identifying players who should contribute two or three years into their career, not immediately — therefore stockpiling additional cheap contracts.

Enter Simpson, who shouldn’t play this season. But if he does within the four seasons following 2026, he will help keep the rest of the roster financially competitive because he’ll be on his rookie contract (he’ll have a fifth-year option available as a first-round pick). If the Rams can develop him like they say they can, the team has a higher floor in a post-Stafford era.

That’s a lot … a lot … of “ifs” for a top-15 pick, and a quarterback no less.