I’m not high on him. He holds the ball way too long for me. His decision making is also questionable when he’s forced to process the game faster through pressure. He reminds me of Rudolph in Pittsburgh. Medium floor low ceiling prospect.
What do you think about Simpson? I have a feeling with Reich Jets will make a play for one of the QBs in the draft if they do not blow their load on Murray (fingers crossed not). He has the biggest probability of success beyond Mendoza as pickings are super slim. Thoughts on him possibly being drafted 16?
Simpson has potential. He just doesn’t have enough live bullets to be a starter. Especially on a really bad team. His FBI is really high and it will take time to catch up to pro speed. For me he’s Daniel Jones 2.0
My two cents - first off, I’d definitely make a call on Jalen Milroe, if only for depth and competition. It’s not a square comparison, but he always had a Jalen Hurts feel to him - the Alabama guy who always had a top recruit either in front or behind him. Probably why your thoughts immediately shifted from Simpson to Milroe. Wasn’t too long ago Simpson was the hot-shot Alabama recruit right behind Milroe. Which leads me to my concerns about Ty Simpson. One of the biggest: he’s the huge, 5-star recruit that two Alabama HCs were almost begging to rise to the top as the clear starter, but really never could. Yeah, he eventually did, but any crimson-bleeding Alabama fan doing an honest review of the last three seasons would have to agree with most, if not all, of this. Follow me here. Ignore his freshman year when Bryce Young was still around. If you remember, after Young left, Alabama’s QB position was full of question marks. I’m sure they were dying for Simpson to shine, but after a full year in the system and an open competition, Milroe beat him out. And Simpson wasn’t even the second choice. That was Tyler Buchner. Milroe was then benched almost immediately, Saban gave both Buchner and Simpson a shot at taking over as starter, Buchner sucked badly, Simpson showed nothing special, and they flipped back to Milroe - which, in hindsight, was the right choice. Although, nobody at Alabama was really in love with Jalen Milroe that whole season. It really wasn’t until the next year, when he and Ryan Williams pulled off the win over UGA. That was the game where Alabama fans got to say - yeah, Saban’s gone but we’re still Alabama. Alabama fans might fight me on that, but I bet if you go back and read their message boards that’s the narrative you’ll see. Of course, then they lost to Vandy and weren’t sure again. Heh. Not unsure enough to experiment more with Simpson, though. Fans were googling Kalen DeBoer’s buyout number but they certainly weren’t calling for Simpson. Anyway, Milroe leaves, another huge recruit comes in, there’s another open competition and Simpson is eventually named starter right before the start of the season. But they STILL weren’t really sold on him. Alabama loses the first game against FSU(!!)- more due to shitty defense that couldn’t find Thomas Castellanos on the field, but the offense didn’t do much either. DeBoer then experiments a little with all three QBs, almost like he was showing Alabama fans that he was right and Simpson was the best option. Either that, or it was a message to Simpson that if he didn’t heat it up there’d be a change. To Simpson’s credit, he did. Until about the midpoint. Then he hit a wall. Or defenses had more film and caught up with him. Or, if you believe the stories, Dylan Stewart broke him in half and he played out the year with a back injury. Doesn’t matter which, he wasn't terrible in the second half of the season, but he didn’t look like the same 1st Round talent that he did in the first half of the season, much less the top-half of the 1st Round. So, my point is - any team drafting Ty Simpson in the first round is doing it based on half a season when he looked like a 1st Round QB and his high school scouting reports. High school scouts are amazingly good, considering they’re working with kids who haven’t even finished growing or learning football, and most don’t have huge track records. Simpson definitely hasn’t lived up to his ranking. Funny part is, that was a hilariously bad year for QB recruits. I went back and looked. The top-5 reads like an all-star list of problematic QBs - Cade Klubnik, Conner Wegman, Simpson, Drew Allar and Walker Howard. I shake my head at the online draft experts more than I follow them, but the upside to Simpson, by my eye is - at his best he was really accurate, smart with the ball, and looked every bit like an NFL QB. Even at his worst he doesn’t make stupid throws. Aside from the one throw he’ll probably be remembered best for, which wasn’t as much stupid as it was inaccurate. But, Alabama was thin at RB all year, even when Jam Miller was healthy. You can almost track Simpson’s success with Miller’s health. Also, Ryan Williams became an unreliable butterfingers. So, there was a lot on Simpson’s shoulders, and he mostly performed. The downside, he’s athletic enough that his legs should have been the threat that compensated for a weak running game, but it’s like he wanted to be the guy who stood strong in the pocket and deciphered defenses. You can probably blame much of that on DeBoer because Penix was athletic and he didn’t take off much either. Also, I remember seeing Simpson next to Austin Mack in the CFP and he just looked really small. Not just shorter - small. If you believe the back injury excuse after the USC game and you add to that a cracked rib in the CFP, they add up to a guy we’ll be calling “injury prone” in a couple years. Count me out. Anyway, that’s where my head goes on Ty Simpson. The only reason I can understand his name included in any First Round discussion is because this year is so starved for top-tier QBs.
I’d take a crack at Milroe. Explosive athlete with a big arm who always made clutch throws in important games. I wanted the Jets to draft him.
