{"id":510318,"date":"2026-02-28T19:48:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T19:48:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/510318\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T19:48:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T19:48:17","slug":"steelers-potential-draft-target-ty-simpson-sends-bold-message-to-nfl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/510318\/","title":{"rendered":"Steelers’ potential draft target Ty Simpson sends bold message to NFL"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ty Simpson<\/a>, one of the most polarizing 2026 quarterback draft prospects who’s been heavily linked<\/a> to the Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a>, delivered a confident statement to the entire NFL \u2014 he’s capable of becoming a franchise quarterback.<\/p>\n

Simpson, who only had one season as a starting quarterback at Alabama, has had plenty of doubters heading into the draft process. But his recent message may have silenced them all.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI feel like I\u2019m ready. I\u2019m a franchise quarterback,” Simpson told reporters on Friday. “Like I said earlier, Alabama prepared me most for the NFL. With the infrastructure that they had, and the guys from Coach [Nick] Saban and then Coach [Kalen] DeBoer, Coach [Ryan] Grubb, all the coordinators that I had before, I run an NFL-type system. It\u2019s definitely prepared me for saying those long play calls, saying those checks, making sure that I get us in the right protection. Everybody talks about my starts, but I\u2019ve played in other games besides that, and I\u2019ve played against really good NFL players.\u201d<\/p>\n

Backing up his strong statement with a great combine performance would make Simpson nearly undeniable among quarterback-needy teams heading into the 2026 NFL Draft.<\/p>\n

Earlier in the week, ESPN’s Brook Pryor reported that the Steelers<\/a> have “closely watched”<\/a> Simpson, but it remains to be seen if Pittsburgh considers him worthy of first-round draft status, or if they’re hoping to avoid a potential Kenny Pickett 2.0.<\/p>\n

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This article originally appeared on Steelers Wire: NFL combine: Simpson delivers strong message amid Steelers buzz<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ty Simpson, one of the most polarizing 2026 quarterback draft prospects who’s been heavily linked to the Pittsburgh…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":510319,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,5878,1264,593,1241,85,76895],"class_list":{"0":"post-510318","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-franchise-quarterback","11":"tag-kenny-pickett","12":"tag-nfl","13":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-ty-simpson"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=510318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/510319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}