Former LSU national champ throws shade with brutal Ty Simpson NFL prediction

Fernando Mendoza is QB1 in the 2026 NFL Draft. The Indiana QB will be the No. 1 pick of the Las Vegas Raiders; that’s a near certainty. The big question looming over the draft is whether any other quarterback will join Mendoza in Round 1. 

Ty Simpson is the top candidate to be QB2 in the class, and frankly, there isn’t much competition for that distinction. The former Alabama passer has major questions about his struggles in the second half of the year and his lack of playing experience, but his tape is littered with NFL throws, making him one of the year’s most polarizing prospects. 

While he’s not alone in his pessimism, it would be hard to find anyone with a more bluntly negative opinion on Simpson than former LSU national champion Breiden Fehoko. 

Fehoko appears to be pivoting to the hot-take ecosystem since retiring from the NFL following a journeyman career in the NFL. After winning the 2019 national title with LSU, the nose tackle played three seasons for the Los Angeles Chargers and most recently spent time on the Pittsburgh Steelers practice squad. 

Breiden Fehoko has a warning for the GM that selects Ty Simpson

Getting the quarterback position wrong is a death knell for just about any general manager in the NFL. Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, who was fired by the Minnesota Vikings two years after selecting JJ McCarthy in the first round, is the most recent to attest to that. However, Fehoko seems to be misunderstanding the type of first-round QB prospect that Simpson is in this class. 

Simpson will certainly be driven up the board by the league’s desperation to find the next franchise guy. At least now, over two months out from the draft, though, it doesn’t appear that Simpson will push up into the top 10 and join a team where he’d be the Day 1 starter. 

If that ultimately becomes the case, Fehoko might be right, and not just because Simpson will fail, but because, as a one-year starter in college with limited game reps, he’d be joining a bad team and be set up to fail. The more likely landing spots for Simpson are in the latter half of the first round, on teams that could allow him to sit for, if not his entire rookie year, much of it, before taking over the starting job. 

In that scenario, with the Los Angeles Rams, perhaps, Simpson would be entering an ideal situation with a good roster and time to develop. With most of those franchises, even if Simpson isn’t the answer, the team would sooner cut bait with the player than with the general manager. 

Simpson has NFL talent. Fehoko clearly doesn’t believe that’s the case, but the way Simpson carried Tide without a run game to speak of was remarkable. Simpson’s play tailed off late in the year as his injuries piled up, and that’s a concern in the NFL because he’s not the biggest player, but so long as Simpson doesn’t get pushed up into the top 10, whichever GM selects him this year should be safe, almost regardless of how well he plays at the next level.