Rams

Rams HC Sean McVay noted that QB Matthew Stafford would obviously be supportive of first-round pick QB Ty Simpson.

“He couldn’t be more of a stud,” McVay said, via Pro Football Talk. “When you’re an elite competitor the way he is, he responded exactly the way I would want to. He’s going to put his arm around this guy. . . . He’s like, ‘I understand it.’ He’s earned the right to be year to year, and if he tells me he wants to play three more years, no one would be more excited about that than me.”

Rams

Rams director of scouting Nicole Blake and assistant general manager John McKay commented on the team’s decision to select QB Ty Simpson with the No. 13 pick.

“He’s somebody who would work well with [head coach] Sean [McVay] and fit what we’re looking for at that position,” Blake said, via Sarah Barshop of ESPN. “He makes a lot of pro-style throws, and it was very easy to see the translation. You have to be smart to play here. You can tell just by watching the film that he knows how to play the position. He’s a super-smart quarterback. He obviously grew up with a dad as a coach so he’s lived and breathed it for his entire life. Particularly for Sean and the way that we like to play, you can’t just plug and play any quarterback in there. When you find somebody that you think fits that system and has the buy-in from everybody in the building that we found, I don’t think it really matters when you take them, you just take them. Maybe it’s two years, three years, four years, who knows. It’s a hard thing to find so when you find that, you take it.”

“He had spent the time at Alabama learning,” McKay noted. “He was in a high-level program and then we were able to evaluate all the types of throws. He was in a lot of big moments so we felt like there was enough in that sample size where we didn’t have any pause about the starts. We felt confident based on what he had put on tape that he was the right guy. The one game that I always go back to is you watch him play against Auburn this year where things were really messy. He was under a lot of pressure up front and things were really just moving fast. It’s not his best statistical game. It’s not a game where it stands out, but you see some of the clutch moments. Him being able to rise up and make plays to get them a big win. That was a game that really stood out. It’s not the game that everybody talks about. I think he only threw for like 130 yards. When you watch that game and really evaluate the tape, you’re like, ‘Holy cow, that’s incredible that you got them across the line.'”

Rams

The Rams picked Alabama QB Ty Simpson with the No. 13 overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft. Los Angeles HC Sean McVay said the selection was essentially an “extra pick” after trading out of the first round in last year’s draft with the Falcons, while they were able to trade their original first-round pick in this year’s draft to get CB Trent McDuffie. 

“To move back and to still get the guy that we wanted, and then to basically be able to get an extra pick,” McVay said, via Eric Williams and Ralph Vacchiano of Fox Sports. “And then oh by the way, with your original one, go get a player like [cornerback] Trent McDuffie. … We’re always going to make decisions that we think are best for the short and the long term. We will be excited to be able to get to work with him. That’s where we’re at.”

One anonymous NFL personnel executive thinks picking up Simpson was a smart move, given that Matthew Stafford is in the tail end of his career. 

“They gave him a heads up it could happen,” the executive said. “It’s a good roster-building move when you have a 38-year-old quarterback with an unpredictable back.”

The same executive also thinks McDuffie will help their roster more than a rookie cornerback could have. 

“They got McDuffie,” the executive said. “He will help much more right now than a rookie at any position.”