While you may have been surprised by the Rams using the No. 13 pick on Ty Simpson on Thursday night, it's a move that had been telegraphed months in advance by Los Angeles GM Les Snead.
Following the 2025 Alabama season, Ty Simpson had a decision to make on whether he would return to the Crimson Tide, enter the NFL Draft, or even enter the Transfer Portal. As Simpson will tell it, the decision was always Alabama or the NFL. He and his father, UT-Martin head coach Jason Simpson, consulted with several scouts, executives, and draft experts while weighing whether to declare or not.
Simpson only wanted to make the leap if he knew he was going to be a first-round pick.
He got a vote of confidence three months ago. That just so happened to come from Snead, who used the 13th pick of the first round to select Simpson, making good on what he told him back in January.
The NFL Network's Ian Rapoport reported on that interaction on Thursday:
"When the Simpson family was trying to make the decision on whether or not he should enter the draft or stay in school, they consulted, among other people, Rams GM Les Snead, who told the family Simpson is for sure a first-rounder," Rapoport said.
Les Snead told Ty Simpson he was 'for sure' a first-round pick months before making it happen
There wasn't a better possible landing spot for Simpson than the Rams. It felt like that from the moment he entered the draft.
After making only 15 starts at the college level before making the jump to the NFL, most prognosticators believed that the Alabama QB wouldn't be ready to play immediately at the next level.
In Los Angeles, he won't have to. The Rams have the reigning NFL MVP in Matthew Stafford firmly entrenched as the starter next season. But Stafford is 38-years-old, so it always seemed likely that the Rams would follow a path paved by others, such as the Packers, Chiefs, and Ravens, among others, who drafted a quarterback while having a starter already in place.
With Stafford's injury history, it made sense for Los Angeles to plan ahead. Snead certainly agreed, and he did what he had to do to ensure Simpson entered the draft and then made sure to grab him when he had the chance.
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