If the Los Angeles Rams drafted Ty Simpson in the first round simply because he was considered the best quarterback, Les Snead is repeating the same mistake countless general managers have made since the draft began. The Minnesota Vikings made that mistake with JJ McCarthy two years ago, and the comparison to Simpson is warranted.
For example, McCarthy only threw 713 passes in college, half as many as Jayden Daniels. Many non-ESPN draft analysts believe he is too raw, inexperienced and unproven to draft in the first round.
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Simpson threw 523 passes in college. He didn’t do anything at Alabama until his fourth season in college, and then he was handed the keys to one of the most talented, offense-oriented programs in the country. Even so, Simpson’s performance was mediocre, especially when the game really mattered:
In the past seven games, Simpson has completed 60% of his passes with eight touchdowns and four interceptions as Alabama went 4-3 and was defeated by Georgia and Indiana. Simpson’s offense combined for 10 points in these two games.
Even so, there’s still a major problem with the NFL Draft that ESPN’s quarterback-starved producers are trying to fill with some crap:
Colleges have been far worse at quarterbacks over the past five years than at any other time in NFL draft history.
The best quarterback in the 2026 class is Fernando Mendoza, a rookie himself, who might actually have a worse overall draft grade than JJ McCarthy if they were in the same class, but the No. 1 pick is a foregone conclusion because the Las Vegas Raiders don’t really have a choice. If Mendoza joins Caleb Williams, Daniels and Derek Meyer, he’ll be a simple The selection is no better than QB4.
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But whether it is the class of 2022 or the class of 2026, Mendoza is the best. of That class.
Where does that leave a quarterback like Simpson, the consensus QB2? Unfortunately for NFL fans who just want an accurate picture of reality, that means Simpson has been shoehorned into an “underrated” quarterback position, and instead of getting a ton of media hype from ESPN’s click farms eager to see “QB CONTENTZ” every March/April, that means Simpson has been shoehorned into an “underrated” quarterback position that might even be better than Mendoza.
Don’t believe me? This is Dan Orlovsky, Represented by CAA and Jimmy Sexton (the same agency that represents Ty Simpson)said Simpson was “just as good” as Mendoza:
Orlovsky wanted fans to believe that Simpson would be a great prospect if he had more reasons to be a great prospect, but in reality he’s still a great prospect despite this:
“If Ty Simpson was 6-foot-4, or if Ty Simpson had 20-plus games or 23 college starts, he would be playing the No. 2 spot with the New York Jets.”
Orlovsky was once again in the same organization as Simpson, and he made the hard sell that Simpson was “very” like Brock Purdy, the last pick in the draft class.
Of course, you may not need any form of business contact to oversell Simpson from a Day 3 prospect to a Top 10 prospect. Chase Daniel has no obvious connection to Sexton or CAA, but still runs the promotion, suggesting Simpson is a first-round talent who is being underestimated by sane people:
On a YouTube channel that I think is generally good, Daniel looked for some combo footage to make the case for Simpson as a first-round quarterback. Why is there no hidden agenda in doing this?
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Well, the least hidden agenda: clicks.
Saying the quarterback class is terrible or that a fourth-round quarterback is just a fourth-round quarterback won’t get you any attention. That’s just what a reasonable person would expect to hear, and it’s not very interesting to the average/mainstream NFL Draft fan who knows nothing about the prospects.
We just want to hear about the first-round quarterback situation. We don’t want to hear about any other quarterbacks, right?
So how do you create content that people will watch if you don’t think any quarterback candidate is worthy of going in the first round? Or at most you think Mendoza is a good enough prospect, a Heisman Trophy winner, a national champion, and destined to be No. 1 regardless of your own analysis. What do you do?
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You pretend to be a first round quarterback prospect!
In 2022, we have various ESPN/media pitches claiming Malik Willis is a top-three pick, Desmond Reed is a first-round pick, Matt Corral is a first-round pick, and Kenny Pickett is a first-round pick.
The week of the draft, NFL.com’s Chad Reuter teased Pickett, 2, Willis, 8, Corral, 12, and Reed, 16!
Does anyone care if this is a weird bug? Apparently not. People just forget that this is why these draft analysts are so comfortable and confident that all they really need to do is chase immediate hits instead of worrying about the long-term consequences of trying to predict horrific mistakes.
What happened? Pickett went 20th overall to the Steelers, as was widely expected regardless of his performance the next day, and no other quarterback was drafted in the first or second round. Willis and Reed fell in the third round, and Corral was out of the NFL in just a few years.
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No one seemed to care about how wrong the media was at the time, or that ESPN spent thousands of hours trying to convince us that Willis was a top-10 pick despite his weak resume in Liberty. Similar to Simpson, much of Willis’ resume is built on what analysts call “look at the highlights, look at cherry-picked statistics, look at the combine.”
This was only meant to fool fans, but surprisingly, it seems even general managers and owners were fooled by the pre-draft hype for 2024.
Michael Penix, JJ McCarthy, and Bo Nix were all widely considered second/third round picks throughout the draft season. There isn’t even much movement to push the narrative, as ESPN may be distracted by Caleb, Daniels and Meyer. Even so, when draft night came, Penix was ranked No. 8, McCarthy was No. 10, and Knicks was No. 12.
Just two years later, Penix (Tua Tagovailoa) and McCarthy (Kyler Murray) are both playing out the tail end of their careers with the teams that drafted them to add veterans good enough to be starters next season. Minnesota took a step further Thursday, re-signing Carson Wentz and seemingly giving up on McCarthy faster than the New York Jets gave up on Zach Wilson.
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Now it’s 2025, what do we see?
The NFL was so ridiculed by the ill-intentioned media that Shedeur Sanders fell from a “consensus top-10 pick” in the simulation to a fifth-round pick in real life. The media still can’t get over the fact that Sanders is bad.
Will fans or owners be fooled by Ty Simpson’s performance this time?
It’s impossible, but they shouldn’t do it.
Where does Simpson rank?
While Orlovsky and a few others have tried hard to build a stellar resume for Ty Simpson, not everyone agrees with the premise. Simpson is not a consensus first-round prospect in the NFL mock draft database.
As you can see, with Garrett Nussmeyer, Carson Baker, and Drew Allar ranked lower, not to mention either Tyron Green or Cole Payton outside the top 130, Simpson’s best argument right now is that he’s a middle ground between a good prospect (Mendoza is still vastly overrated) and the third-best prospect, whether it’s Nussmyer or Allar or Green or Payton, and so on. No one really knows yet. The class is so bad.
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What’s clear is that if the Rams have any plans to draft Ty Simpson at 13 just because “he’s a quarterback and people tell us we need a quarterback,” then Los Angeles has about as much chance of passing on him in 2028 as the Vikings have of passing on McCarthy in 2026.
Not that anyone should blame Minnesota for passing on McCarthy, who has been one of the worst starters in history in recent years, but sadly — and every NFL fan should be concerned — as long as the NCAA continues to slow down quarterback development in the NIL and transfer portal era of college sports, we’re likely to see this trend continue.
If you picked Simpson because you thought he was a lock to be a future starter, you’d be wrong.
If you draft Simpson because you’re worried about a worse future quarterback prospect, you might just want to trade a seventh-round pick for JJ McCarthy; you can always go to him when Simpson is replaced by a veteran in a few years.