The question of how the Los Angeles Rams plan to support and eventually replace Matthew Stafford has been a topic of offseason debate almost ever since the day that Sean McVay orchestrated a trade for him in 2021. It’s now been five years since the trade, with a Super Bowl win and three other trips to the playoffs, and the clock is ticking on when the Rams will show their cards for the heir apparent plan.
This has led to some antsy speculation that the Rams could be the team that takes the bait on Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson that ESPN and others have been pushing all week.
Next in line to spread the chum has been Yahoo! Sports’s Nate Tice, someone who is actually in disagreement with ESPN’s Benjamin Solak that L.A. would NOT make sense for Simpson as a draft fit:
“Of all the potential Ty Simpson landing spots,” tweets Solak, “the one I just can’t get my head around is the Rams. No doubt he’s a scheme fit, but the whole lesson of flipping Goff for Stafford was what superior traits unlocks for McVay’s offense. Simpson would be a U-turn IMO.”
Tice thinks differently.
“Ever since the end days of Goff in LA and the brief excursions with Wolford and Perkins, I’ve had a theory that McVay has wanted a QB that he can use as a runner,” tweeted Tice in reply to Solak. “Even if it just for a couple of plays. They were sniffing around on (Anthony Richardson).”
Who do Rams fans tend to agree with here?
Solak’s point, ironically an ESPN colleague of the Simpson-obsessed Dan Orlovsky, is far more rational and evidence-based than Tice’s.
Which is not to say that McVay doesn’t want a more mobile quarterback because he might.
First of all on AR, any number of teams could have “sniffed around” on Richardson. He’s a former top-5 pick who could be available for a sixth rounder. Why not check in? He’s also ALMOST NOTHING LIKE TY SIMPSON. AR is also prototypical size, if not OVER-sized, and Simpson is undersized.
Second, the Rams never had any serious intentions to use Bryce Perkins and John Wolford as long-term starting quarterbacks. That would imply that McVay is stupid. Perkins and Wolford were former undrafted free agents who proved in preseason that they had the potential to become versatile backups and start one, maybe at most two games at a time. To the point where eventually L.A. did have to pick up Baker Mayfield and start him for five games in 2022.
Simpson is overrated, but he’s not as bad as Perkins or Wolford were as prospects, right?
Which is to say that point taken by Tice, maybe McVay wants a much better version of John Wolford and thinks that with 1-2 years he could mold that player into being a “Brock Purdy-like” starter. But saying that Wolford and Perkins’s mere presence on the team for a few years implies something about how L.A. will use a top-15 pick on a quarterback (assuming that’s where Tice is thinking) is a stretch to make a point. Not a valid argument on its own.
It’s like if you’re trying to sell someone a car and saying “I know you like cup holders, right? Well this one has cup holders!”
They all have cup holders. And almost all quarterbacks can run a little.
Solak even maybe takes a subtle dig at Tice’s comparison with this reply:
Would the Rams draft Ty Simpson?
Well, anything could happen! If you told me that the Colts would waste a top-5 pick on Richardson or that Michael Penix, JJ McCarthy, and Bo Nix would be top-12 picks, I would have not necessarily believed it either. Those were late risers in the draft process too.
Simpson might go top-15 and the Rams might think they’re playing with enough house money to take a quarterback who only had 15 college starts—and wasn’t good in like half of them.
One thing is for certain: ESPN likes talking about quarterbacks in the draft, even when there aren’t many good quarterbacks in the draft. That has hyped up a player like Simpson from being an afterthought third rounder in most classes to being the talk of the town in 2026.
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