Zooey wrote:

I think I was leaning slightly to Sadiq. But part of that was that I was imagining what McVay would do with him.

i think they could have lined him up almost anywhere on the field. inline te, move te, slot wr, wr, fb, maybe even do those jet sweeps like they do with kupp and now nacua. they could have gotten really creative with him. i still think they can do some of that with klare. i just don’t know how athletic he is compared with sadiq.

i did read somewhere on this board that klare graded out in the 99th percentile in on field athleticism. done with some kind of computer analysis. he does seem to move pretty good with the ball so we’ll see.

people keep talking as if he will just be stashed away this season.

i’m not so sure. i think the rams are cooking up some things for him and ferguson.

i don’t even understand what they’re saying, but it’s cool.

i got this from the original herd. didn’t know all this. can’t verify if it’s true.

i did hear about oline injuries, but i didn’t realize he was a heisman trophy candidate in the first half of the season or that he was dealing with his own injuries. but do you also worry about his durability? rams gotta get him bulked up. how much more can he develop physically as he’s already in his age 24 season?

by Ram_Ruler
Posted: Today
I just thought this was interesting:

Ty Simpson was the Heisman favorite by week 6 of the college football season. Going into the 8th week of the season, Simpson was completing 73 percent of his passes and had only thrown 1 interception. Against South Carolina, he suffered a back injury that lingered throughout the entire rest of the season. He completed 61 percent of his passes from that game on. A look at his injuries throughout the year:

-Injured back vs South Carolina
-Developed gastritis from the anti-inflammatory medication he was using to manage the back pain. He lost 15 pounds due to this.
-Developed elbow bursitis in his throwing arm during the SEC championship against UGA.
-Broke his rib after taking a helmet to his ribcage.

That’s a heck of a lot of things to deal with in one year. Not just the pain, but the exhaustion of losing 15 pounds due to an illness. That has to say a lot about his toughness and dedication to Alabama’s program and his teammates.

So is Ty Simpson the guy who was the Heisman favorite and pff’s #1 overall pick up to that point, or is he the guy that we saw down the stretch?

• This reply was modified 1 month, 3 weeks ago by InvaderRam.

i will say one more thing. well. i’m sure i’ll say more later. but if mcvay can actually pull this off. if simpson becomes a high performing qb. and can get another superbowl with him. and by high performing i mean starting level qb. does not have to be a hofer. but a starting caliber superbowl winning qb. that will put him in a different coaching stratosphere.

and so it begins! i can’t wait to see what happens.

ok. one more thing. i don’t know if it’s just talk. but he keeps on harping on all his doubters. how 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.

Sarah Barshop
Apr 27, 2026, 08:40 PM ET

LOS ANGELES — The Rams wanted to keep their interest in Ty Simpson close to the vest before the NFL draft, so the Alabama quarterback kept his meeting with coach Sean McVay “private,” he said Monday in an interview with Ian Fitzsimmons on ESPN Radio’s “Amber & Ian.”

The Rams drafted Simpson, Matthew Stafford’s likely successor, with the 13th pick Thursday night.

“We tried to keep this under wraps as long as we could,” Simpson said in Monday’s interview. “It was something to where I knew they were interested, but they wanted to make it private and didn’t want people to know that they were interested.

“So, I had some secret meetings with Coach McVay, and I just was trying to be on script and do what everybody told me and not to tell anybody.”

After he was drafted, Simpson downplayed his predraft interactions with the Rams.

“It was really brief, to be honest with you,” he said Thursday night. “I met with some scouts in Alabama, and that was really it. They talked to my agent, but that really wasn’t much.”

In reality, Simpson said Monday, he and McVay had one meeting before the draft and “talked for hours and hours.”

“And it was just football,” Simpson said. “It was just straight football. And it was like a kid in a candy store. Me and him are sitting there, and we’re just going back and forth. You can tell the obsession he has for the game, and you can tell the love he has for quarterback play.

“It’s something that I appreciate, and it’s something that I enjoy because I really enjoy playing the position and value the position. So, being with him and then getting to know him and then just seeing a little bit of how I would get coached if I was fortunate enough to go there was something that I couldn’t have asked for a better situation.”

Though McVay said he “couldn’t be more excited about being able to add [Simpson]” to the roster, he wanted to make it clear that Stafford will be the Rams’ quarterback for as long as he wants to play.

“Whenever that time comes for [Simpson] to get an opportunity to be Matthew’s successor will be on Matthew’s terms,” McVay said Saturday night.

zn wrote:

Plus there’s a possibility to develop someone on hand—Whittington, Mumpfield, Daniels. They had the 1st ranked offense in terms of both points and yards last year with what they have. They lost games because of defense. So yes they can add a veteran 3rd WR, like they did with Demarcus Robinson previously, but this is not the crucial “do or die” factor, CB was that for 2026.

agreed.

zn wrote:

invader, did you mean to post a ZZ Top vid? Or is that an accident?

Not saying you can’t post ZZ Top vids. Just wondering if that’s what you meant to do.

Was that a reference to the “does Simpson have legs and know how to use them” discussion?

i changed it. should be good now?

zn wrote:

In fact he may have the best legs of any decent starting qb they’ve had since I first started watching them.

i hope he’s able to sit for two or three seasons and then take over.

Zooey wrote:

The knock seems to be his blocking, and some say he has a limited upside there. I wondered about that because my impression is that blocking is mostly leverage and angles i.e. technique. Why can’t he improve there?

i hear differing things. i tend to agree with zn and these evaluators are evaluating him as a traditional in line tight end which would be a waste of his ability anyway. i think those responsibilities will fall on parkinson and higbee and allen.

i did see one video where they thought his year at ohio state helped him in that they placed more blocking responsibilities on him than they did at purdue. it forced him to get better in that area and ultimately helps him more in his transition to the nfl. i also almost universally see that he graded out a better blocker than stowers so there’s that.

he also has only 33 games of experience. his freshman year he only played 2 games and his sophomore year he only played 5 games before he got injured. by comparison that’s less than brock bowers, tyler warren, colston loveland, kenyon sadiq, eli stowers, harold fannin jr, sam laporta. the only tight end i looked up who had less was dalton kincaid. so he’s somewhat got some more growth in him relatively speaking. he was also a qb who converted to tight end his junior year in highschool.

zn wrote:

Max Klare’s Athleticism is practically off the charts

i’m really curious as to what numbers he would have put up if he had participated at the combine.

so he ranks in the 99.6 percentile in on field athleticism score. i had to look that up. it apparently uses computer vision to track player movements on the field. interesting. i think this is what they are referring to. apparently sam laporta and nacua both ranked in the 99th% according to this article.

https://www.pff.com/news/pff-announces-new-pff-game-athleticism-score-pff-gas#:~:text=The%20PFF%20Game%20Athleticism%20Score%20(PFF%20GAS),and%20tools%20for%20all%20PFF%20IQ%20users.

zn wrote:

So why is there speculation about this pick, McVay’s reaction, and McVay’s future? IMO–people are just making things out of the press conference that are just not there. That’s the incitement.

ok so i went and watched the video. and it was good. pretty much stuff i have been speculating about minus the all the detail and insider information that she brought to the table. mcvay is a lightning rod. has been since the rams hired him. martz caught a little bit of that, but mcvay has for better or worse been able to sustain that for a decade. it just comes with the territory.

an aside note. this. and i keep harping on it. this is one of the markers that will define sean’s legacy. his ability to draft and develop a qb. as jourdan said, mcvay won’t actually be in there getting his hands dirty with simpson, but he will be overseeing the process. he is directly involved in hiring the people who are responsible for tuning simpson up. and i agree with jourdan. he needs a stable environment to accomplish this. because mcvay is such a lightning rod, the environment is always in flux. especially with the offensive coaching staff. how he does this i have no clue. goff had lafleur and he left almost immediately. so now what happens with simpson. jourdan has her doubts. i wonder too. i think what will be crucial is how much mcvay has learned in the years since he traded goff and then almost burned out himself. can he slow down his pace and let others catch up? simpson will also have the benefit of learning under stafford instead of being put in the pressurized environment of a qb1 like goff was. of course if stafford retires in a year, then everything changes. it would actually be a benefit to everyone if stafford stayed two or three more years. but mcvay will also have to realize that he can’t just expect simpson to hit the ground running. i’ll be curious to see how it all unfolds.

i will say this. i slightly disagree with her in that some of it might be personality issues. goff may not have been the best match personality wise? i don’t have anything to base that on. just a hunch. simpson might actually be a better fit. just watching him in that chase daniels interview. again. i can’t quite articulate it, but i can see mcvay vibing with this guy. doesn’t mean it’ll be a success. but it may have a better chance of success than the mcvay goff partnership?

i am glad they also talked about the 13 personnel transition the rams are doing. i think ferguson and klare will be important. so important as wr/te hybrids. it’s why i wasn’t so concerned about drafting another receiver. i see next year as parkinson being the inline te with higbee as the backup or vice versa. and then ideally ferguson as the move te/third wr if he can progress. so they’ll essentially be an 11/12 personnel hybrid. then you can mix in klare or higbee/parkinson depending on the situation in 13 personnel. in the future you could even have ferguson and klare lined up together with two wrs if everything goes well. i’m sure the coaching staff are coming up with all sorts of different ideas.

• This reply was modified 1 month, 4 weeks ago by InvaderRam.

how does one read between the lines in this interview? hahahaha!

they say there was no pushback when discussing simpson. i can’t believe that’s true. not exactly.

they do mention that it wasn’t in important where they took him. just that they got their player. i think we’ve known for awhile that this organization values draft picks differently than most other organizations do.

and lastly shout out to all nerds. good to see our people at the podium taking questions.

Herzog wrote:

I think McVay was kind of a dick to Ty on the phone. He gave me”I’m gonna run you out of town” vibes. One of the few times I was really disappointed in him. Like him or not, he’s got him now…. Coach him the Fuq up now

that’s what i thought initially. but i am not so sure.

maybe aloof? i think he’s trying to tread a line between bringing in a new qb and making sure the old qb knows that he’s still the guy.

i don’t even know if that came from stafford or maybe mcvay just had it in his head. or he didn’t want the media to manufacture some kind of drama?

the media did end up creating drama anyway which they tried to clear up. i don’t think snead or the organization would want to upset mcvay by forcing a pick on him unless they know something we don’t. which is that mcvay and stafford do not plan on coming back. but i don’t see any reason to think that.

zn wrote:

wv wrote:

Well, I dont get why you think the third rounder is a guard? He started all his college games except one at Tackle.

Cause to me, 6’4 = Rams guard.

Moving college tackles inside to guard is an old NFL thing.

his length isn’t ideal for a tackle. doesn’t mean he can’t, but most likely his ideal position is guard.

they said he can play all five positions. my secret hope is he can play center?

wv wrote:

(Check out the vid “why i almost fell in love with simpson”. At about the 10 minute mark he starts the negative stuff on Ty. )

i just watched it. the mechanics issues are worrisome. i guess that can be corrected with coaching? but he also needs live reps too. which he ideally won’t get outside of preseason.

late diagnosing plays? again maybe a reps issue?

the physical problems i don’t have so much of an issue with. he’s not going to outrun defenders.

he looks like a second rounder. i know snead doesn’t put much stock into draft capital. just a means to get a player. i don’t know. i know he’s got fancy mathematicians mathing the outcomes. maybe it makes sense from that point of view? but from where i’m sitting i want another superbowl. any number of injuries could happen. a nacua suspension is not out of the question. an oline injury (although they addressed that later in the draft). adams. or one of the dbs could go down.

stafford is not replaceable. impossible in the near future. very unlikely in the distant future. this is why you got him in the first place. he’s supposed to be the elite qb to get you over the hump like mina kimes said in that video. i don’t think you can math that problem if he goes down. the other ones you can math.

the more i think about it actually the less convinced i become. unless mcvay and the coaching staff find the next steve young in this kid.