Ty Simpson told On3 he skipped out on duck hunting Sunday because he didn’t know what to do.
Simpson was weighing whether to stick with his NFL declaration or consider the multi-million-dollar offers from other programs to enter the transfer portal he received from Miami, Ole Miss and Tennessee.
Simpson, as AL.com reported Sunday, received an offer as high as $6.5 million to enter the transfer portal, even after he declared for the draft. He told On3 that was from Miami, who upped the offer from an original $4 million. That’s about what Ole Miss and Tennessee offered him as well.
“I really felt good with my decision to go pro, but that amount of money to play college football again for what amounts to about eight months makes you stop and think,” Simpson told On3. “I remember my parents telling me that $6 million was more than they had made the whole time they had been married, but the thing they wanted most for me was to be happy.”
Nick Saban, Simpson said, gave him the advice of “take the money out of it.” If everybody offered no money “what would you want to do?”
“I just couldn’t do it because of everything I stood for and what Alabama had meant to me and the legacy that I built there,” Simpson said. “Everybody would just remember me as the guy who took all this money and went to Miami or Tennessee for his last year. But I was a captain. I put my hand and footprints in the cement at Denny Chimes.”
So, Simpson signed and submitted the paperwork to officially enter the NFL draft Tuesday, sources with knowledge of the situation told AL.com. Simpson was in Tuscaloosa early this week to submit the paperwork ahead of the Wednesday deadline.
“Been a great ride,” Simpson wrote on Instagram on Tuesday with a picture of his locker.
Simpson completed 305 of 473 passes (64.5%) for 3,567 yards, 28 touchdowns and five interceptions in his lone season as Alabama’s starting quarterback. Simpson waited three seasons for his chance to lead the Crimson Tide. He then became a captain who helped Alabama win its first College Football Playoff game in the 12-team era against Oklahoma before the Crimson Tide’s season ended in the Rose Bowl to Indiana.
Simpson never made more than $1 million in one season at Alabama, he told On3.
“I know people always say it’s not about the money, and I could have made way more money somewhere else, but I was happy at Alabama and wanted to stand on what I built there. That’s the way I wanted to go out,” Simpson said.