Dan Orlovsky makes bold claim about Ty Simpson’s NFL Draft stock
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Dan Orlovsky says Alabama was a bad football team in 2025, and yet quarterback Ty Simpson shined anyway.
In the context of who Alabama has been for the better part of the last 2 decades, Orlovsky claimed Thursday morning that the Crimson Tide were nowhere near their standard. But Simpson helped them win a road College Football Playoff game anyway. The former NFL quarterback said Simpson’s 2025 tape is that of a passer whose floor is the middle of the first round.
“If he’s not a first-round pick tonight, then we are evaluating, in the NFL, the quarterback position wrong,” Orlovsky said on ESPN’s Get Up. “All I know is the tape says he’s no question at worst around [a] middle-of-the-first-round draft pick. And if he’s not tonight, I’ll be the first person to say I was wrong, but that means we’re not evaluating the quarterback position properly.”
Simpson is a tough eval for teams. He has only 15 college starts under his belt after sticking it out at Alabama for multiple seasons as a reserve. When he finally stepped into a starting role with the team, he was saddled with a run game that ranked next-to-last in the SEC in efficiency. Simpson’s offensive line also allowed him to be pressured on more dropbacks than just 6 other FBS passers.
Simpson ended the year ranked 43rd among qualified passers in EPA per dropback, per Game on Paper. PFF graded him as the 19th-best qualified FBS passer. He ranked 21st in Total QBR.
But in a weak quarterback class, former Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza and Simpson are head and shoulders above the rest of the group. Will that turn into a first-round selection for Simpson? The 2026 NFL Draft begins at 8 p.m. ET on Thursday night.
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
