The Rams threw everyone a curveball by making quarterback Ty Simpson the 13th overall pick in the draft. Then came another one.
During the post-selection press conference featuring G.M. Les Snead and coach Sean McVay, McVay seemed to break character.
McVay almost always effuses positivity, about everything. Rarely does he deviate from projecting that vibe. It happened after the Thursday night loss to the Seahawks, which featured the kooky two-point conversion that tied the game in the fourth quarter. Eighteen weeks later, it seemed to happen again.
McVay kept quiet. Most of his answers were short. He plunged his hands in his pockets while Snead explained the reasoning for picking Simpson. As to the question of what it was about Simpson that made him the choice, it was Snead not McVay who provided the response.
“I think that at the end of the day, probably processing football, someone who can execute a passing offense,” Snead said. “He has mobility. So that’s probably the macro. There are a lot more variables that go into it, but that’s the macro I would say.”
McVay didn’t add anything to Snead’s response about the macro, or the micro.
Later, McVay said this about the arrival of Simpson: “We’ve talked about the importance of 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. There are a lot of things that [Alabama offensive coordinator Ryan] Grubb did that’s very similar to how we operate so it made it an easier evaluation to be able to say, ‘Alright, what would that look like if he did translate it to our level?’”
Still, McVay didn’t seem to be enthused. Perhaps it was a next-level effort to underscore the notion that Simpson wasn’t drafted as a way to kick Stafford to the curb, like the Packers did when picking Jordan Love during the latter years of Aaron Rodgers’s tenure in Green Bay.
"[L]et’s make one thing clear, this is Matthew’s team,” McVay said.
If McVay wasn’t simply playing quasi-bad cop as part of a strategy to underscore Stafford’s status, it’s a very strange outcome. McVay is one of the best quarterback coaches in the league. Why would the Rams pick Simpson if McVay wasn’t all-in with the approach? McVay has accomplished enough in ten years with the Rams to have veto power when it comes to such an important selection at the position in which he specializes.
Maybe the Rams had grown weary with the year-to-year uncertainty surrounding Stafford. Still, if/when Stafford retires, the Rams would be a very attractive destination for any and all available free agents. With Stafford committed for 2026 (they still need to work out a contract), they can worry about whether Stafford will play next year after this year.
The internal argument to roll the dice on Simpson may have been that the 13th selection was a bonus pick, thanks to the trade with the Falcons that gave them Atlanta’s 2026 first-round pick.
“There were a lot of players that we liked and there was a lot of thought that went into it,” McVay said. “We do feel really fortunate that when you look at the 13th pick, we were able to get that where Atlanta had an interest in getting a player last year. We would’ve taken [Terrance] Ferguson with our first-round pick last year. To move back and to still get the guy that we wanted, and then to basically be able to get an extra pick and then, oh by the way, with your original one, go get a player like [cornerback] Trent McDuffie.”
McVay possibly thinks they could have done the same thing with Simpson. Trade down and get Simpson later. While it would have been a calculated risk, 13 was on the high side for Simpson. Taking him that high makes it even harder to sell the idea that Simpson wasn’t drafted with an eye toward Simpson taking over, like when the Falcons made Michael Penix Jr. the eighth overall pick only six weeks after signing Kirk Cousins.
"[W]e’re always going to make decisions that we think are best for the short and the long term,” McVay said. “We will be excited to be able to get to work with [Simpson]. That’s where we’re at.”
Here’s where they’re at now. When Snead and McVay speak tonight, McVay will be asked about his demeanor from Thursday night. The good news is that he has all day to come up with a persuasive answer.
Still, he’ll need to sell it a little better than he sold it after the Simpson pick was made.
The Rams picking quarterback Ty Simpson with the 13th overall pick in the draft came as a surprise to everyone, including Simpson, who didn’t hear from Rams coach Sean McVay or General Manager Les Snead at any point in the pre-draft process.
Simpson said that other than meeting some Rams scouts who came to Alabama’s Pro Day, he was in the dark about the Rams’ interest.
“It was really brief,” Simpson said of his interactions with the Rams. “I met with some scouts at Bama and that was really it. They talked to my agent but it was really not much.”
Simpson didn’t visit the Rams and said playing in the Rose Bowl is the only time he’s been to Los Angeles. Simpson’s father is the head football coach at UT-Martin and has been in touch with Snead, but Simpson said he personally hasn’t met Snead or McVay.
“This was my first time talking to Les, tonight,” Simpson said. “This was my first contact.”
At the Rams’ press conference after picking Simpson, McVay looked rather unenthused, leading to speculation that McVay wanted Snead to pick a player who could help Stafford win another Super Bowl, not Stafford’s heir apparent. McVay also said only that Simpson would get a chance to compete with Stetson Bennett for the backup job.
But while it’s fair to question whether McVay and Stafford are happy to have Simpson, Simpson says he’s very happy to work with them.
“I haven’t talked to Matthew yet but I’m super pumped to be in the room with him and learn from him,” Simpson said. “He’s one of the greatest of all time. We watched his film all the time when I was with Bama, the stuff he did, the stuff the Rams did with Coach McVay, so the fact that I can soak up all that knowledge, I couldn’t ask for a better situation.”
In the biggest surprise so far in the 2026 NFL draft, the Rams have selected Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson with the 13th overall pick.
That makes Simpson the heir apparent to Matthew Stafford, who has mused about retirement.
Simpson was widely regarded as the second-best quarterback in this draft, behind No. 1 overall pick Fernando Mendoza, but few expected Simpson to go off the board within the first half of the first round.
Rams General Manager Les Snead and head coach Sean McVay, however, are believers in Simpson and think he can develop into a franchise quarterback in McVay’s offense.
How much longer Stafford is the Rams’ starting quarterback remains to be seen, but now the Rams know who’s next. Simpson is the Rams’ pick tonight, and the Rams’ pick to be their quarterback of the future.
The Rams are leaving the door open for both Jimmy Garoppolo and the possibility of adding a rookie quarterback in the draft.
Garoppolo is considering retirement and McVay said at a press conference earlier this week that the team doesn’t want to press him for a decision about returning for a third season at this point. He reiterated that during an appearance on ESPN Los Angeles ahead of Thursday’s first round and also said that the team has done the necessary research to be in position to draft a quarterback if things break that way over the next three days.
“We do our work on all these positions,” McVay said. “Whether you’re saying it’s a [Fernando] Mendoza, it’s a Ty Simpson, it’s a [Garrett] Nussmeier, it’s Carson Beck, there are a lot of guys that are going to be good players in this draft and if we feel like it fits for us, you consider it. But we are still hopeful and optimistic that you give Jimmy his time, maybe he’ll have a change of heart. I think the best thing you can do — you never want to force somebody to do something. He’s earned the right to be able to walk away on his terms and it’s been an amazing career.”
Stetson Bennett is currently the only quarterback on the roster behind Matthew Stafford and Stafford’s not guaranteed to be playing beyond 2026, so adding a rookie quarterback would make sense whether Garoppolo wants to come back or not. Should that move come early in the draft, it might be an indication that the Rams don’t think there’s a high likelihood of that change of heart coming to pass.
The Rams reached the NFC Championship Game last season, head into this season as the betting favorites to win the Super Bowl, and should draft another good player tonight, when they own the 13th pick in the first round, thanks to a forward-thinking trade with the Falcons last year.
A year ago, the Rams traded their own first- and third-round picks to the Falcons for Atlanta’s second- and seventh-round picks, plus their 2026 first-round pick. The Falcons badly wanted pass rusher James Pearce, and they were willing to give up their 2026 first-round pick to go up and get him.
Rams General Manager Les Snead and head coach Sean McVay have earned the job security that makes it easy for them to think ahead when making trades. They didn’t need the instant gratification of adding a player in the first round in 2025, when they anticipated that with the Falcons’ first-round pick they’d have a chance to add an even better player in 2026.
While the Rams played the long game, Falcons GM Terry Fontenot and coach Raheem Morris knew they were on the hot seat. Knowing their 2025 job status was “win now or get fired,” they didn’t have time to worry about their 2026 first-round pick. Sure enough, Fontenot and Morris were both fired at the end of last season. The new regime in Atlanta has to rebuild without a first-round pick, while Pearce is not currently with the team as he faces legal charges stemming from alleged abuse of his ex-girlfriend.
The Rams are in much better shape. They traded away their own first-round pick for cornerback Trent McDuffie, but the Falcons’ first-round pick means they still have the ammunition to bolster their roster tonight. Maybe they’ll add a good player with the 13th pick, or maybe Snead will trade it for more picks or another player, but either way, the Super Bowl favorites should get better tonight.
The long-term thinking the Rams showed during last year’s draft is one of the reasons they’ve been able to consistently stay near the top of a league that is structured to promote parity.
