The story of Peter Schrager’s mock draft isn’t just that the Rams took Makai Lemon, it’s the player who ESPN’s analyst didn’t have L.A. connected to at all. Actually, Schrager doesn’t have any team taking Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson in the first round, a sign that his ESPN colleague Dan Orlovsky’s ploy to drum interest there has backfired.
The spotlight that Orlosky attempted to put on Simpson last month by calling him better than Fernando Mendoza has inspired more and more draft analysts to examine the prospect and come back with the same answer: He’s not a first round pick.
Schrager’s opinion is perhaps the most notable at all however because no historically no insider has been more plugged into what the Rams are doing than the former Sean McVay podcast co-host.
“Until I have a team that tells me, ”We love Ty Simpson”’, said Schrager on The Pat McAfee Show on Tuesday, “it doesn’t do anyone any good just throwing him in there.”
Unless you want to call that a smokescreen for the Rams, Schrager is making it 100% clear that the Rams are not interested in Simpson. Not in the first round.
Simpson’s inability to rise up draft boards means that Mendoza’s value as the only rock solid first round quarterback has skyrocketed. The Las Vegas Raiders are sure to be picking Mendoza and leave the other 31 teams, most of whom would love to develop a young quarterback, searching for answers on day two and three.
Others, like Robert Mays, have come out in agreement that Simpson doesn’t have a first round resume.
Another ESPN analyst, Matt Miller, also says there are no teams in the Ty Simpson market in the first round.
Orlovsky won’t back down, saying that the Raiders should pick Simpson as recently as Monday.
NFL Network’s Daniel Jeremiah said that he has not talked to a single team that has Simpson with a first round grade. We know that makes Simpson a major reach at pick 13, potentially even at pick 31.
“Obviously, you can talk to different people, but I have not talked to anyone that has that,” Jeremiah said. “That’s not saying that he’s saying anything untrue, he’s just talking to different folks, apparently, than the folks that I’ve been talking to. And that goes from the Raiders, and a bunch of other teams too, and it wasn’t particularly close.”
The Rams would like to add a quarterback behind Stafford who could develop for 1-2 years, but there are 0 signs that there is a single avenue towards doing that in the first round.
And if it’s a quarterback at the end of the second round, that doesn’t leave much room for hope that L.A. wouldn’t have to go back to the same well again in the 2027 draft looking for a signal caller. Which makes you wonder, why didn’t Ty Simpson just transfer?
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