Rams stun NFL draft, take Ty Simpson with No. 13 pick

The Los Angeles Rams turned the first round into a referendum on risk, using the No. 13 pick on Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson in Pittsburgh on Thursday night and jolting a draft that already featured eight trades. Simpson was not close to consensus as a top-half first-rounder, but the Rams bet that a thin quarterback market and premium upside could outweigh the concern that he had only 15 college starts.

The size of the swing made the pick one of the night’s defining shocks. Simpson threw for 3,567 yards, 28 touchdowns and five interceptions in his lone season as Alabama’s starter after waiting behind Bryce Young and Jalen Milroe, and his production tracked a classic boom-and-bust profile. Alabama opened 8-1 with Simpson in 2025, with Simpson throwing 21 touchdowns and one interception over the first nine games, then faded late. In the Crimson Tide’s playoff loss to Indiana, he managed only 67 passing yards. NBC News noted that Connor Rogers ranked Simpson as low as No. 42 on his board, a gap that underscored how far the Rams went beyond the mainstream view.

The move was not a blind leap. Pre-draft reporting had described the Rams’ interest in Simpson as an open secret, and multiple reports said Sean McVay called Matthew Stafford earlier in the day to let him know the team was weighing a quarterback. After the selection, McVay made the hierarchy plain: “This is Matthew’s team.” Stafford is coming off an MVP season and is still expected to play in 2026, with an extension in the works, so Simpson arrives not as an immediate replacement but as a controlled succession plan behind one of the league’s most established veterans.

That tension, between present certainty and future uncertainty, defined a first round that seemed to reward boldness more than caution. The Las Vegas Raiders took Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza No. 1 overall, a pick that fit the pre-draft expectation at the top, but the bigger story was how aggressively teams chased ceiling across the board. Eight trades signaled a market willing to pay for flexibility, and the Rams’ decision suggested that a quarterback with limited starts but high-end traits can still draw premium capital if a team believes the position scarcity is real enough. In that sense, Simpson was not just a Rams gamble. He was the clearest sign that some front offices are valuing upside over certainty more aggressively than they have in years.