NFL draft evaluators won’t stop raving about Ty Simpson’s performance vs LSU

Ty Simpson is still in his first year as the Alabama starting quarterback, but the way he’s playing, it could be his only season behind center in Tuscaloosa. The redshirt junior is draft eligible, and though he’d be entering the league relatively inexperienced, his performance in 2025 is too enticing for that to stop quarterback-needy NFL teams from selecting him at the top of the 2026 NFL Draft. 

This early in the process, with the draft still months away, it’s hard to get a sense for where NFL teams will be on any particular player, especially one with as small a sample size as Simpson. However, NFL draft evaluators in the media are typically a fairly good barometer, and they won’t stop raving about Simpson’s performance against LSU in Week 11. A performance Simpson wasn't particularly proud of.

Simpson finished the game 21-for-35 for 277 yards and a touchdown, nowhere near his greatest statistical performance of the season. However, with Alabama’s limitations in the run game, finishing with just 56 yards and averaging 2.2 yards per attempt, the entire offense was on Simpson’s right arm, and he delivered some of the best throws of the season against a talented defense. 

ESPN NFL Draft expert Jordan Reid was one of many to highlight this throw: 

One of Simpson’s superpowers this season has been his ability to throw with anticipation, and no throw exemplifies it better than this one, layering it perfectly between four LSU defenders with excellent touch to hit his receiver in stride for an explosive play. That’s an NFL caliber throw, not to mention the remarkable pocket presence Simpson displays buy time get the throw off in rhythm. 

Nothing about that play was easy, and frankly, very little about what Simpson has done to lead the Alabama offense this season has been easy either. The Tide have major limitations, whether you want to pin them on the offensive line, the running backs, or offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb, but Simpson covers them up with plays like that. 

Why Ty Simpson's lack of experience shouldn't be held against him

The Athletic’s Dane Brugler cut together a few of Simpson’s best throws from the week and previewed what will be the hot-button discussion topic of the NFL draft season around Simpson:

Many of the most successful young quarterbacks to come into the league over the past few years have anywhere from 30 to 50 starts at the collegiate level. Jayden Daniels, Bo Nix, and even Brock Purdy are examples of what extra reps in college can do for the onboarding process into the NFL. Simpson, though he’s a coach’s son and redshirt junior, will likely enter the draft with somewhere between 13 and 16 starts, all in one season. 

Not only is that a small sample size to evaluate, but it could also mean his developmental arc at the next level takes much longer, and bad teams that need a quarterback aren’t particularly patient. 

The counterargument to Simpson’s lack of experience, beyond him making the most impressive throws of any quarterback in the country consistently all season, is the amount of responsibility that Kalen DeBoer and Grubb have given him. That’s not just in terms of the high pass rate and lack of a run game, but it’s also the autonomy that they give Simpson at the line of scrimmage to change the play or protections, and the NFL-style pass concepts that Grubb asks Simpson to read on a weekly basis. 

This isn’t a quarterback that runs 50 percent RPOs and has never been in a huddle before. Simpson knows how to play the position, and that’s why he has a good a chance as anyone of being the No. 1 overall pick in Pittsburgh this spring.