Alabama QB Ty Simpson is the current frontrunner for consensus QB2 treatment in the 2026 NFL Draft. Whether or not that winds up equalling Round 1 draft capital remains to be seen. Either way, plenty of QB-needy NFL squads will surely be doing their homework on the latest talent to come out of Tuscaloosa. 

Today, we'll get to know Simpson a bit better by breaking down five cool things about the strong-armed talent, including:

• How we got here: Not your typical five-star recruit
• Biggest strengths: Fun combination of arm talent and off-script ability
• Three cool stats: This Bama supporting cast wasn't great
• Causes for concern: Look at him, he's OLD
• Fun facts: LEGOs and goldendoodles

And of course, we'll finish things off with several provocative comps that will hopefully get the people going.

As always: It's a great day to be great.

NFL Draft Scouting Report For Ty Simpson | QB

How Ty Simpson Got Here: Not Your Typical Five-Star Recruit

Simpson is probably pretty used to being in the spotlight at this point. The Tennessee Gatorade Player of the Year as a senior, Simpson led Westview High School to the 2A State Championship on his way to earning five-star status among the recruiting services.

Ultimately, Simpson chose Bama over Clemson, Ole Miss and Tennessee, among others—and he actually stuck with it! While Simpson's decision to never transfer is impressive in and of itself, the loyalty is even more surprising when considering he spent the first three years of his collegiate career backing up Bryce Young and Jalen Milroe.

Good news for Simpson: He finally did get the chance to be QB1 in 2025, and good things generally happened!

• 6-foot-2, 208 pounds
• 2025: 3,567 yards-28 TD-5 INT passing, 90-93-2 rushing
• Engineered game-winning fourth-quarter drives on the road vs. Auburn and South Carolina
• All-SEC Second Team, team captain
• Mock draft projection: Round 2

However, the 2025 season was a bit of a tale of two halves for Simpson. The mid-season All-American was earning No. 1 overall pick steam after a mostly brilliant first half of the season, but his efficiency fell off in a major way down the stretch–perhaps due to a lower back injury suffered against South Carolina.

Simpson also reportedly suffered elbow and rib injuries during some of the team's hardware games down the stretch. Credit to the team captain for gutting through the pain and still managing to flash some NFL ability throughout the year.

Ty Simpson's Biggest Strengths: Fun Combination of Arm Talent and Off-Script Ability

The three strengths that stuck out to me the most after watching all of Simpson's non-screen dropbacks from last season …

Touch and accuracy on intermediate passes: The man said it himself, "I'm pretty much 100% on digs". Simpson has no fear throwing over the middle and displays rather awesome touch when doing so. A similar sentiment is true when throwing to the sideline: Simpson's arm strength is very solid (and probably underrated overall), but it's his ability to layer the football over underneath defenders in the intermediate areas of the field that really stands out.

The highs were HIGH: Simpson's second game of 2025 against UL Monroe saw him complete all 17 of his pass attempts—an SEC record for most completions without an incompletion in a game. He was also nearly perfect against Wisconsin (24/29, 382-4-0), and sure looked like he belonged in the Heisman race with consecutive multi-TD performances against Georgia, Vanderbilt, Missouri, Tennessee and South Carolina. Things didn't go overly smoothly the rest of the way, and that matters in the evaluation, but at his best, Simpson's combination of pinpoint accuracy from the pocket, arm talent and mobility stresses defenses at all three levels of the field.

Has a bag of improvisational skills: It's easy to see where the common Brock Purdy comps come from: Simpson has a knack for avoiding would-be sacks in the pocket before continuously managing to scramble away from defenders bigger and faster than him. It's always tough to know just how much this sort of skill will translate against the top-1% of athletes at the next level, but at least Simpson has proven capable of creating some off-script magic when necessary.

Three Cool Ty Simpson Stats: This Bama Supporting Cast Wasn't Great

Three more cool stats and facts about Simpson that line up with what you'll see from watching him play:

• Healthy Simpson was BALLING: Simpson averaged 8.4 yards per attempt with a 20-1 TD-INT ratio while completing 67.8% of his passes through his first eight games of the season. But his final seven games while playing through the aforementioned back injury? 6.5 yards per attempt with an 8-4 TD-INT ratio on a 60.6% completion rate.
• Catch the ball, guys!: Simpson had a whopping 30 passes dropped in 2025 (PFF). That was tied for the most among Power Four QBs and generally one of the higher marks from a top draft prospect in recent years.
• Not your Grandad's supporting cast: In addition to the drops, the Crimson Tide struggled mightily to provide Simpson a capable ground game, as their average of 4.2 yards per carry ranked a brutal 65th among 68 Power Four offenses. Bama also allowed pressure on 30.3% of pass plays (28th). Add it all together, and Simpson wasn't exactly operating inside the world's most QB-friendly environment in 2025.
   

Ty Simpson's Biggest Weakness: Look at him, he's OLD

Of course, as is the case with any prospect, there are some potential red-ish flags to concern yourself with here.

Look at him, he's OLD: Simpson turns 24 in December and has only 15 career starts to his name. Typically, older prospects have a lot of collegiate experience, but that's not the case here, and it leaves a lot of questions when trying to discern whether Simpson's first or second-half performance should be considered the norm.

Saved his worst performances for the biggest stages: Maybe Simpson was simply too banged up to do much of anything down the stretch. But man: His three worst performances in terms of yards per attempt came in the SEC Championship against Georgia (5.4), the team's season-ending playoff loss vs. Indiana (4.2) and in the Iron Bowl against Auburn (3.5).

Overall athleticism feels more good than great: Which could be more of a problem against finely tuned athletic machines at the next level. I have fewer concerns with Simpson's arm strength than his escapability. The latter feels a bit Shedeur Sanders-esque in terms of being fine and dandy against lesser collegiate competition, but a problem against the elites. Overall, Simpson was sacked at least three times on seven separate occasions last season, and I don't think it's particularly surprising to see those instances happen against some of the team's better competition (Florida State, Vandy, Mizzou, Oklahoma x2, Auburn, Georgia).

Fun Facts About Ty Simpson: LEGOs and Goldendoodles

Five facts of the fun variety about Simpson:

• Ty's Dad, Jason, is the head football coach for the UT Martin Skyhawks—a job he's held since 2005.
• Says he really, really enjoys two things: Grilling and doing LEGOs.
• Simpson has a goldendoodle named Rip after the Yellowstone character. Obviously, the dog has an Instagram.
• Simpson had a 78-yard run against Chattanooga, but unfortunately committed one of football's greatest sins and dropped the ball just before crossing the goal line. Nick Saban was not happy!
• Has some Geno Smith to him when it comes to postgame quotes. After beating Oklahoma in the college football playoff, Simpson said, "They tried to write us off. We didn't write back! We didn't write back, baby!"

Ty Simpson NFL Draft Player Comp

And now for the moment you've all been waiting for: My favorite comps for Simpson:

• Upper-middle-class man's Sam Howell
• Big K Cola Brock Purdy
• Walmart Tony Romo
• Regular Cheerios–not Honeynut

Best of luck to Simpson on his NFL journey, and thank you all for reading!

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