Rams’ decision to draft QB Ty Simpson was months in the making

Perhaps the biggest shock from Round 1 of the 2026 NFL Draft was the Los Angeles Rams selecting quarterback Ty Simpson with the No. 13 overall pick.

With reigning MVP Matthew Stafford still playing at a high level — albeit on a year-to-year basis — L.A. decided to draft for the future rather than add an immediate impact player on a team with legit Super Bowl aspirations.

The Alabama product was also projected by most to be a second-round pick, at best, in the lead up to the draft. However, NFL Network Insider Tom Pelissero had been leaving a trail of bread crumbs the past few weeks linking the Rams to Simpson.

On Friday morning, Pelissero laid out the details of how the Rams were a big factor in Simpson’s decision to even enter the draft in the first place as the 23-year-old and his family were contemplating his next move.

“One of the people that he leaned heavily on and told him in December, the floor is first round for Ty Simpson was Les Snead, the Rams’ general manager,” Pelissero explained on Good Morning Football. “You fast forward in the coming weeks, again, as Alabama is going to the Rose Bowl and there’s going to be discussion about, all right, all the money is moving in college football at this point. Miami’s offering $5 million for Ty Simpson to come there and play college football in 2026 … they come back and they offer him 6.5 million. That is more money than the top pick in the second round gets in a signing bonus to play college football. So then they’re out there in L.A. for the Rose Bowl. The Rams actually have Ty Simpson’s parents over to the facility. They spend time with them. Mom is still on the fence; dad’s gathering all the information. And when they asked, why should Ty come out in this draft? The answer, and I’m paraphrasing — I wasn’t in the room — from Les Snead was, essentially, because I’m gonna take him with the number 13 pick. Now, there’s nothing binding about a conversation or a text message or advice. But that’s how convicted Les Snead was about Ty Simpson being a franchise quarterback in the NFL.”

Why the Rams felt this way about Simpson was all about how he fit in Sean McVay’s offense, per Pelissero.

“The Rams went back, they charted all these plays. You see, so many RPO-based offenses, including for Fernando Mendoza, and it’s not NFL style stuff. They charted over 60 snaps where Ty Simpson turns his back to the line of scrimmage on play action, which is a fundamental part of the Sean McVay offense. You see him process pre- and post-snap, you see them make NFL reads and NFL throws. The questions are the size, it’s the durability; he’s 6-1 and change, was around 200 pounds — under 200 when he suffered from gastritis at the tail-end of last season. He had elbow bursitis, he had a lower back issue, he cracked his rib and couldn’t finish out the Rose Bowl — those are all chances, in addition to the fact that the guy’s only started 15 games. But if you go back and you transfer — just ask Carson Beck, Garrett Nussmeier, Drew Allar — you can get over evaluated sometimes. Teams can pick at all your scabs if they have too much tape and you start to look at them, and break in all the things he can’t do versus what he can.

“The upside is still there for Ty Simpson. The Rams are betting on that upside in a big way by using the number 13 pick. Any coach, any coach in the NFL, is going to go, ‘I got the reigning NFL MVP. I’m trying to win right now. Get the help for Matthew Stafford.’ Ty Simpson, in the best case scenario, doesn’t see the field this season, because that would mean something happened to the reigning NFL MVP. For Les Snead, he is setting this thing up for the long haul. It doesn’t happen very often, particularly when a player is playing at as high level as Matthew Stafford. But you have to understand, this is what it was going to take for the Rams to get him. Les Snead was on this for months. This was not willy-nilly, we got stuck, and we took a guy. This was Les Sneed’s guy, and we’ll find out in the years to come how well it works.”

Much was made about McVay’s disposition following the first round as the Rams head coach met with the media alongside general manager Les Snead. McVay had brief answers, declined to tell what he told Simpson on the draft call and made it a point to declare this still being Stafford’s team, which breathed the thought of his unhappiness to some.

Despite the mind readers and body-language experts, there were no surprises in the Rams’ draft room on Thursday night, according to Pelissero, who added that the club even informed Stafford of their plan to take Simpson ahead of time.