Is Ty Simpson a first-round quarterback? When he and his dad sought advice from NFL general managers at the start of the offseason, they felt the answer was unequivocally yes. Now, despite media-generated buzz about Simpson challenging Fernando Mendoza as QB1 in the class, it’s hard to find a home for Simpson in the first 32 picks.
Less than a week out from the 2026 NFL Draft in Pittsburgh, the prevailing wisdom is that for Simpson to be a first-round pick, a team, which many expect to be the Arizona Cardinals, will need to trade back into the late first to get him. Aside from that scenario, another popular destination for the one-year Alabama starting QB is the Pittsburgh Steelers at No. 21 overall.
Well, on Friday, Steelers’ owner Art Rooney II decided to cross his team off as a Simpson landing spot, telling the media, “it’s probably not going to be a quarterback in the first round.”
#Steelers owner Art Rooney II says there's one position the team is doubtful to take in the 1st round.
— Alex Kozora (@Alex_Kozora) April 17, 2026
"It’s probably not going to be a quarterback."
Pittsburgh still could draft a QB in the mid-rounds.
(via @astockeyWTAE)https://t.co/KTfHoE0BKS
Art Rooney II takes his Steelers out of the mix for Ty Simpson in Round 1
Last season, the Steelers extended their playoff win drought to 10 years with 42-year-old Aaron Rodgers at quarterback. To show how unacceptable another first-round exit is, the franchise’s radical change was to replace Mike Tomlin, who hasn’t been to the Super Bowl since 2010, with Mike McCarthy, who hasn’t been to the Super Bowl since 2010, and to bend over backwards in hopes Rodgers, who won Super Bowl 45 with McCarthy, will run it back heading towards his 43rd birthday.
That’s not necessarily to say that it would be a better move for the Steelers to select Simpson 21st overall and hand him the reins. He started just 15 games in college, and for how long Pittsburgh has seemingly been stuck in NFL purgatory, its roster doesn’t have many major holes. Simpson needs time to develop, and somehow, Pittsburgh has been barrelling towards win-now mode with an aging roster and without properly addressing the most important position.
Pittsburgh likely wouldn’t be the best fit for Simpson either. While McCarthy gets some credit for developing Rodgers through his years backing up Brett Favre in Green Bay, he has primarily dealt with bigger pocket-passers. Simpson would be best suited in a place like Arizona, running a McVay/Shanahan-esque offense that allows its quarterback to play on the move a bit more and puts a premium on the ability to throw on time over the middle of the field, which is Simpson’s best trait.
The best chance for Simpson to succeed in the NFL is by finding the right landing spot, and Pittsburgh isn’t it. Still, he took a significant gamble passing up on massive rumored NIL packages from Tennessee and Miami, which were attempting to coax him into the Transfer Portal and entering the NFL Draft. If he slides into Round 2, it’ll look like a pretty significant mistake.
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