Rams pull off surprise with Ty Simpson pick

(News4usonline) – The beauty about the NFL Draft is that nothing is really certain until it happens. The Los Angeles Rams validated this point with the No. 13 pick in the first round of the 2026 NFL Draft. 

If the Rams stayed the course as speculated in various news reports, they were expected to select a wide receiver who would provide another offensive weapon for quarterback Matthew Stafford. 

Apparently, Rams general manager Les Snead and head coach Sean McVay thought differently. When it was time for the Rams to make their first-round selection, the pick seemed to come from somewhere out of left field or something. 

But the Rams picking Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson as the No. 13 overall selection in the first round of the draft makes sense in a lot of ways, although the announcement left Simpson somewhat stunned.

“I was super blessed and super excited,” Simpson said. “The fact that an organization like the Los Angeles Rams believed in me and took a chance on me is just something that I’m so grateful for.”

Depth, reliability and competition are attributes that make a good team great. The Rams are a great team because they have those three core components as a collective body. 

Going into the draft, the speculation birds figure that the Rams were just one player away from getting to the Super Bowl party that eluded them this past season. 

Rams general manager Les Snead nixed that idea during a press conference after the team had announced that Simpson was the team’s pick in the first round.  

“At the end of the day, what we want to accomplish in the draft and any acquisitions that we have is try to engineer as competent a team as possible. Then, let’s go to work. Let’s get through May. Let’s get through June. Let’s come back in August,” Snead said. 

“Let’s then go to Australia and play game one and try to be the best team and try to evolve and be playing our best football at the end. I answer that question in saying, I don’t want to sit here and it’s April and say, ‘Okay, we draft one player and now we go to the Super Bowl.’ There is a lot of hard work that happens between this night and whoever’s playing in that game in February,” Snead added. 

To be sure, picking any player, let alone a quarterback that high up in the draft, there is going to be rumblings about that athlete being next in line to succeed the heir to the throne. 

As it stands currently, that throne is currently being held down by Stafford, who is coming off a year in which he won the league MVP for the regular season. 

The 2026 season will be Stafford’s 18th in the NFL, so the thought of a natural transitioning handoff to a younger player is to be expected. Rams head coach Sean McVay made it clear, though, about who is still running the program. 

“There were a lot of players that we liked but when you do look at it, I think the thing you liked about the body of work is…let’s make one thing clear, this is Matthew’s [Stafford] team,” McVay said. 

“You get a chance to be able to address the backup quarterback. We’ve got Stetson [Bennett]. We’ve talked about the importance of [Quarterback] Jimmy [Garoppolo]. To be able to add somebody that you can evaluate a body of work where he was asked to play the position and a lot of things that do translate in terms of concepts, reading with his feet, some of the different things in the drop back in the play action game and the movement game,” McVay went on to say. 

Simpson was the second quarterback picked in the first round. Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza, whom Simpson competed against in the 2026 Rose Bowl Game, was selected by the Las Vegas Raiders with the No. 1 overall selection. Simpson played his entire career at Alabama. 

But it was only last season that he was allowed to hit the field full-time and shine. And he made it count. In 15 games, Simpson completed more than 64 percent of his passes for 3,567 yards and 28 touchdowns. 

Aside coming to play for a team with a winning tradition, Simpson has the opportunity to watch and learn, something he had to do at Alabama. 

“I think it’s very similar to where I am now with Matthew,” Simpson remarked. “Learning under [Panthers Quarterback] Bryce [Young], learning under [Seahawks Quarterback] Jalen [Milroe], learning things of what I can do better and learning things on what I need to work on. It’s very similar to what Matthew has and brings to the table.”