The Los Angeles Rams lost the NFC championship game last season and are entering 2026 in win-now mode. But they made the biggest surprise pick in the first round of the 2026 NFL draft on Thursday by taking quarterback Ty Simpson at no. 13.
The choice to go for a backup for Matthew Stafford—and, theoretically, Stafford’s successor in a year or two—came completely out of left field. I scoured mock drafts published this week from beat reporters, draft insiders, and well-sourced talking heads, and only one—from The Ringer’s Todd McShay—had him going to the Rams at no. 13. This is the first time Los Angeles has drafted a quarterback with a top-100 pick since head coach Sean McVay was hired in 2017, and it’s only the second time Les Snead has spent a first-round pick on a quarterback since taking the Rams general manager job in 2012.
“We’re always going to make decisions that we think are best for the short and the long term,” McVay said in the Rams’ press conference Thursday night.
Those words read well from McVay on paper. But the coach’s body language and tone throughout the press conference raised questions about just how enthusiastic he is about the team’s decision. After all, the Rams have real Super Bowl aspirations for the 2026 season, and Simpson has a long development process ahead of him.
Simpson’s 2025 Alabama tape was interesting enough, and, if you squint, you can see a potential NFL starter in there. But he lacks the elite athletic traits that would suggest he has true star potential. He certainly doesn’t come close to having the physical tools as a passer that Stafford does, so it’s fair to wonder why McVay would pick a far less gifted thrower as his quarterback of the future. There was a reason the Rams traded Jared Goff away in 2021, after all.
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It's also worth noting that Simpson started just one season for Crimson Tide, making this pick even riskier. Simpson’s lack of collegiate experience does not bode well when we look at recent history. Over the past 10 drafts, there have been six other first-round quarterbacks who’ve entered the league after just one college season as a full-time starter: Anthony Richardson Jr., Trey Lance, Mac Jones, Kyler Murray, Dwayne Haskins, and Mitchell Trubisky. Only Murray became a quality NFL starter. Otherwise, that’s a wasteland of picks. Most of those passers struggled to adjust to the speed of the NFL and were ultimately relegated to backup duty by the end of their rookie contracts. Those quarterbacks with limited college experience haven’t elevated their teams or turned them into playoff contenders. And we have not often seen players with Simpson’s profile make a major leap once they’re in the NFL. It’s hard to watch plays like this and just assume that things will be better for Simpson against an NFL pass rush.
The best-case scenario here is that McVay was on board with this pick (which didn’t seem to be the case on Thursday night) and that Simpson will thrive under the mentorship of Stafford, who won his first MVP award last season at age 37. But Simpson doesn't have the special physical tools Stafford has, and he won’t be able to take the chances on throws that Stafford can. And as a young, inexperienced player, he won’t see the field like the 17-year veteran does. It’s hard to believe that Simpson will be ready to lead this franchise in 2027—or whenever Stafford retires or moves on from Los Angeles.
Regardless, the pick’s been made, and the Rams now find themselves on a “two-timelines” approach, not all that different from what the Golden State Warriors tried following the 2019 departure of Kevin Durant. The idea is that a championship-caliber team can keep its title window open while making the moves necessary to be competitive in the future. For the Warriors, the result was a stilted approach to roster building; they tried to manufacture a developmental runway for players who weren’t ready to play right away, which only increased the burden on their star players. What was supposed to be a masterstroke in thinking ahead ultimately accelerated the end of Golden State’s run as a contender. The Rams might find that drafting Simpson instead of a player who could have been an immediate starter will eat into their margin for error in 2026.
By choosing Simpson instead of an offensive lineman, an edge rusher, or a wide receiver, the Rams are sending a message that they believe the Rams roster is already built to win a title. Cornerback was the Rams' biggest need at the start of free agency, and they made an all-in move by trading a first-round pick for cornerback Trent McDuffie in March (they also signed McDuffie's former Chiefs teammate Jaylen Watson). After the McDuffie deal, they became the betting favorites to win Super Bowl LXI. The Rams had other needs, of course, but it’s reasonable for them to believe that because they have arguably the best head coach–quarterback duo in the league, they’ll be able to work around any depth issues elsewhere on the team.
The Rams’ “fuck them picks” approach to the draft has been a meme for years, but inside that joke is an acknowledgment of a truth: Few teams know how to maximize a championship opportunity as well as the Rams have for most of the past decade. When the Rams were ascending early in McVay’s tenure and building around Goff, Snead traded multiple firsts for defensive back Jalen Ramsey. When the Rams hit their ceiling with Goff, they aggressively made the move to get Stafford in 2021, and they later traded for edge rusher Von Miller to ensure that they had the necessary pieces to finish the job. Just last year, Los Angeles let Super Bowl MVP receiver Cooper Kupp walk out the door, replacing him with Davante Adams to give the offense more juice. And after they pushed the Eagles to the brink in the 2024 playoffs and matched up with the Seahawks last season, there’s a real argument that they’re neck and neck with the past two Super Bowl winners and primed to get their hands on the Lombardi Trophy again. If McVay, Stafford, and Co. do win a title this season, nobody will be talking about the Simpson pick next February.
But we do have to look at the Rams’ timeline—specifically, whether McVay, Snead, and Stafford are all in lockstep on what the future holds. “Let’s make one thing clear: This is Matthew [Stafford’s] team,” McVay said on Thursday. And it is, at least for now. But Stafford was also fishing around for potential trade partners early in the 2025 offseason, trying to exact enough leverage to get new money put on his contract. He ultimately got a reworked deal worth $84 million, and the Rams are reportedly negotiating an extension. Will Snead play hardball with Stafford? And whose opinion will win out if it becomes the Snead-Simpson extended timeline versus a McVay-Stafford win-now plan?
If there’s one thing I know about the NFL, it’s that the idea of a championship window is a myth. Teams are either competing for one right now or not at all. The Rams roster is so stocked up to compete in 2026 that they're betting they can win without a high-impact first-round pick—and that they’ll be able to keep winning into the next decade. But if anything goes wrong this season or in Simpson’s long-term development, we’ll look back at this pick as the moment Los Angeles sabotaged both timelines.
