Transcription
This is Alabama quarterback Tai Simpson. The half-season Heisman is what I'm calling him. He was driving the ball down the field. He was extending with his legs. He was going through his progressions. I would say even better than Fernando Mendoza. But then the season falls apart. And now we're left with just 15 starts, below average size, and some of like the most up and down metrics you'll see for a quarterback that may or may not go round one.
Let's talk about it. 6'1, 211 lbs. As you said, a one-year starter that included 3,500 passing yards, 28 touchdowns. He's going to be 23 years of age during his rookie season. As you said, it's early year versus late year. And I felt like there was a noticeable difference. Apparently, he suffered a back injury against South Carolina. Also had elbow and rib issues from our buddy Ian Hard. Just to encapsulate the stats, and then you can dive into exactly what you saw.
First eight games of the season, 8.4 yards per attempt, 20 passing touchdowns, one interception, 68% completion rate, and uh unanimous top five mock draft out there. Right. Yes.
Then last seven games, 6.5 yards per attempt, eight passing touchdowns, four interceptions, 61% completion rate. Was the fall off as drastic as the stats appear?
It really was. Uh I would will say that a lot of the drop off though was still making just some really bad decisions. Like hard to like kind of untangle. I did see him just like throw the ball into like sitting zone defenders like way more often than he was in the beginning part of the season. Is that because he was, you know, feeling the pressure? I think like the other big thing with this is this is not the Alabama team that we're used to with Bryce Young, Tua, and M. Jones and those guys, they just didn't have the wide receivers. The offensive line, like even Kaden Proctor, who's going to probably go round one, there was still a lot of pressure against him, too. So, he felt unsettled for even like a lot of the season. I think that he was even the first part of of the season was like playing pretty quickly, but by the end of it, you can really feel all this uh all these issues kind of piling on. And I think that he was forcing some passes that he had no business even trying to throw.
So the consistent elements of his game that can be taken from the opening eight to the final seven weeks of the season. I thought he had like real command of the line of scrimmage. You'll see him make a bunch of checks. He'll get people into the right position to take advantage of matchups. Brian Grub was his offensive coordinator, which is the same thing with Michael Penn at University of Washington. We knew that one season with Seattle. I'll say that this offense is much different than that Washington Huskys offense that we saw with Penn and Odun and everyone else, but they did run, you know, a ton of different formations. Also, I felt like, and you mentioned this at the top, you'll see him read his first, his primary during his drop, then as he's hitting his back foot, he's seeing two on the opposite side of the field and rips it to him in the rhythm of of the drop back game. And you would love to see that from a college quarterback. And you would love to see that for a guy who basically has 15 starts in his college career and that's about it.
Yeah, I can tell he's really smart. You you talked about it at pre- snap and then he got one to two to three then even down to the checkdown uh for a big part of the season and you just do not see that like especially against like Fernando Mendoza. So I think that is the one trait that he has that Mendoz and that Mendoza doesn't uh right now. I will also say that there's some like other parts of his game where the he just kind of throws the ball into just a defender that he has no business getting to and that's sometimes with the pressure. So I think it's it's kind of like separating the two and say in a clean pocket he can scan the field. He understands where it's going and he's going to throw the ball. When things kind of get a little bit iffy then I think the size and then some of the accuracy and then a little bit of the poise there. I think things kind of get jumbled up there. So I think it's kind of like two distinct uh things for Tai Simpson. Dare I say this is why people are consistently comparing him to Brock Birdie. We see a lot of this stuff from Brock Party at the NFL level and I can see why. The positives like you saw him put his foot in the dirt against Vanderbilt which was one of his better games this year. Go watch the early Georgia game too. That was very good on extended play again. Foot in the dirt. He steps back versus pressure. Eyes downfield. I think it's Ryan Williams is that number two. Then kind of curls his route back and he hits him in the end zone for a strike. There's another one actually late in the season in the Rose Bowl versus Indiana. Under center play action, head is turned again against the defense, which we did not see from, you know, his counterpart Fernando Mendoza in this draft. His left tackle loses almost immediately. He climbs and evades that. Then the defensive tackle because it's an extended play, then closes on him. He moves in the opposite direction to evade and then hits his check down for a six-y g. Just a six- yard gain, but that's really a net of 12 yards because a sack could have been a 12- yard loss. So there were I thought some real extended play moments that again I'm not comparing him to Brock Hardy but I can see why some people are those out of structure got to have it isolated quarterback wins and he had them too.
I think it's absolutely a very live athlete. You can just see like the way that he's built. He's very slender but you can tell he can absolutely run. Now at the end of some of his runs he kind of has that crash test dummy uh appeal to it. It's where like you know coins are popping out of his helmet and stuff like it's a cartoon. That is what scares me. But he can he will definitely pick up some first downs with his legs. As a scrambler, I think that you could do some zone read stuff. You want to limit that because of his size. Uh definitely like not like a red zone type, but just like as a change up. I just think that he can absolutely run. And I do think that he's also like a very live athlete in terms of his arm like talent. I think that he has some accuracy problems, which we'll for sure get to, but when he needs to put the ball on a line drive, he has the velocity and the RPMs to make those throws. And there's a couple other quarterbacks like uh Kurt Cousins, JJ McCarthy, where like these like really line drive throwers even though they're tiny, they can still generate enough RPMs. And I do think that Ty Simpson falls into that. A pretty good athlete uh on the whole.
He'll throw every single route. you know, he'll try to hitole shots, he'll hit corner routes, he'll try dig throws like like you said, even if it's kind of dangerous and slightly covered, he does have that willingness to make that throw. Again, despite not a ton of starting experience at the college level, I will say we use the word anticipation a lot. I think if you just want to, it's maybe more complex than this, but simply define what that is. It's throwing it to a spot before the wide receiver is breaking it in that spot. I don't think he's a great anticipation thrower. I think he's kind of late to it. Uh oftentimes he is throwing just as if not after the pass catcher is breaking out from the top of his route. Uh so that can make him a tick late in some of these instances versus we've seen a lot of other quarterback prospects and definitely a ton of NFL prospects throw that ball early to uh not take as many hits in the pocket. I think it's a good segue into my biggest concern with Tai Simpson is because he can be a little bit late on some of these throws and because he doesn't have like the overwhelming just like uh arm like strength like just like just naturally because he's not a huge guy. He really needs to step into throws and he's got one of the most exaggerated followthroughs where that back foot is whipping around all the way to the front and the ball will just sail. And that's where I got like the JJ McCarthy uh comp in there. And they're almost exactly the same build and they had some of the same strengths and some of the same weaknesses. I think his accuracy is close enough to just it's not going to be good enough in the NFL. I think I think it's that low.
Thought the precision and the placement was the tale of two halves of the season. Felt earlier in the season and again I can point to the Georgia and Vanderbilt games. It was quite good. Even though there were some moments in that Vanderbilt one, like there was a dig in that he overthrew by like three or four yards, just total miss. And those were way more frequent in the second half of the season. This gets me to my next point.
I know we can all pinpoint, oh, that's just because of injury. You know, when he's healthy, he is more accurate, albeit still has these like lapses in precision. Or is this just who he is? Like that's the other question because we just don't have a ton of snaps out there on him. Like yeah,
I think it's impossible to say it's just because of the injury. This is who he is because the sample size. And just to give you some context to that, our buddy Richie Barar pointed to this since 2000. Okay, six round one quarterbacks had fewer pass attempts. Only six. So in 25 years and 26 years now, only six first round quarterbacks had fewer pass attempts than Ty Simpson. That's Cam Newton, Mike Vic, Trey Lance, Anthony Richardson, Mark Sanchez, Kyler Murray, and there is Ty Simpson. Just four pass attempts more than Kyler Murray in his college career.
Yeah. I mean, a lot of those guys were complete freakazoid athletes where Ty Simpson is not that. So, that partially explains it. Yeah.
Five of them were basically freak athletes. Yeah. And then he's like a good he's a good athlete, but he's not a freak athlete. Um, yeah. I think that there's just some mechanical issues with Ty Simpson. I think he's kind of overcoming his lack of size and that's why I think some of the ball sails on him a little bit. Um, just to put a number on this, 68% ontarget rate between uh five and 20 airard throws. Uh, if you look at the top 100 quarterbacks in draft since 2016, that's the second lowest mark only ahead of Anthony Richardson. And that window like the intermediate throws is a really predictive measure. It's a lot more predictive than underneath throws. is even more predictive than downfield throws. These are the throws you have to hit. And I just saw the ball kind of sail on them a little bit too much. And Curt Warner, he said that accuracy is like you you can't like measure it uh like with a number like this. But when you see a ball miss by a lot, like one out of five, one out of 10 throws, he says something's not adding up. Like it'd be one thing if you're kind of barely missing the mark, but when something's just way off, which I think it is with Tai Simpson, there's something like actually wrong there. And I do think we're kind of teetering uh into that zone.
I I'm more on your side of the placement and precision stuff of it that even in his best games, he had one or two or three throws that were just way misses. Either way out of bounds, way over the head of a crossing defender, over the middle of the field, and especially those over the middle of the field ones, those can easily end up as interceptions. Quick side note, this means absolutely nothing. Uh, if Jake Delhomme and Daniel Jones had a child, he would look like Ty Simpson. I mean, identical. Maybe like a sprinkle of Kirk Cousins in there.
Oh, yeah.
It is uncanny how much he looks like those guys. The face tun between the two.
It really is.
So, I was just trying to think of what fit where he might land in the NFL. You might disagree with this and you might think this is a little bit early, but like the Arizona Cardinals at 34 just make a ton of sense to me with with Mike Lafleur. I mean, Laflur was with the San Francisco 49ers, I believe, when they had Jimmy Garopppolo. We know that whole kind of tree I think can work with a quarterback like this in terms of I think the quick game is quite good. When in rhythm, he'll throw any route and it does look pretty. Again, theole shots, the corner routes, the post, the digs, crossing routes, all that type of stuff. He'll work a full field. We've seen a little bit of the elongated um plays, the the mini athleticism I would say to his game. It's definitely not perfect, but uh that kind of a play caller to style of offense to coaching tree that he has worked in kind of fits this kind of quarterback.
Yeah, if you want to do the roll out stuff, Tai Simpson could could definitely do that. So, I think that is generally the range. That's kind of where my grade ends up is like early round two, somewhere in the middle of round two, I'll come up with the top 100 big board and finally place him there. But I think he's below the Bo Knicks tier. I think he's below the Jackson Dart tier. I think, you know, it's a little bit different than the Kenny Picket tier and stuff, but this is kind of the range. Tyler Shuck, you're just flipping coins to see if he can get somebody that's good enough on your rookie contract. Um, I'm not sure if I see a massive ceiling with Ty Simpson. I will say he can get hot because he's so aggressive in just his his like play style. He wants to throw the ball intermediate. He wants to get to the backside. He wants to throw the ball down the field. and if he hits on them, he can absolutely get hot for a little bit. I do worry about the sustainability a little bit. Um, and then just in general, the numbers are just not that of a first round quarterback. And this isn't like the the biggest thing that I that I evaluate, but EPA per play is in the 37th percentile among drafted quarterbacks. Uh, the total EPA is 44th percentile. Rushing EPA 47th percentile. Uh, he did play a tough uh strength of schedule, which is always good. Uh, but in my model, if he does go 33rd overall, which is the range you're talking about, he's in the 68th percentile. So, like I do I do view him more as a day two, let's see if we can kind of string together a season or two on our rookie contract and get this thing going. Uh, but I think just it's a tough needle to thread because he's only started 15 games on top of that.
Yep. And he's not a freak athlete, albeit he does have some athleticism on top of that. I think it would have been nice if Ryan Williams didn't forget how to play football this year after his stellar rookie season, freshman season to like true drop touchdowns on routes that probably weren't a real part of the progression. Like there was this one down the seam that perfectly in the bucket that he just dropped that was about 45 yards. Makes no sense.
And Proctor, the left tackle, was just like had a really bad season like just straight up. So, um, my official comps for him, I think if this thing hits, it'll look like Kurt Cousins. I think we're pretty far away from getting there. It takes a lot of development to like really understand reading defenses and stuff, but uh fairly similar size. I think that Kurt Cousins can absolutely rifle the ball in there. He just has to put a lot of juice into and this is obviously way before the the injuries caught up with him. Um but he also can have some some mental mistakes and that the pressure will get to him. And uh Ty Simpson's pressure numbers are really bad. It's negative.35 EPA per play on pressure dropbacks without a screen. uh 68th in total. EPA lost against pressure among uh the 69 qualifying quarterbacks. Like really, really low numbers there. Uh I think some of the mechanic stuff in build is similar to JJ McCarthy. Um so I think that's kind of like the range. Like I think you're trying to hit a Kurt Cousins, which I'm okay with doing sometime in round two. Uh even if the odds are, I think fairly low that it'll actually work out.
Yeah, we didn't talk about the lost EPA to sacks uh or to pressure I should say. There was one sack and I'm sure there were many others like at the 10 yard line where he just had so much time just to throw the football away and he wouldn't let the play die. And again, I understand why people might compare him to Brock Party in some of that stuff. I even think the Brock Party stuff is and I've been a big fan since, you know, immediately was starting his rookie year. That's a tough need to thread too and it really helps when you have someone like Kyle Shen as your play caller.
Well, I think Brock Pur's so stout like he's he can throw guys off of him. There is too many fumbles. It's like if you look at the turnover worthy plays for him, it's not like all these interceptions. It's when he gets hit, the ball is out and like sometimes that's scrambling, sometimes that's trying to buy some time. That only gets harder against bigger, faster NFL players when the pocket collapses even more. So, to me, it's like the fumbles and all that type of stuff plays into why the EPA is so bad on the pressure stuff. It's not like interceptions and sacks. There are some of those. It's like the ball's out and like that's a that's a big problem. some real positives, some real negatives, and some real questions again with a guy with only 15 starts this season. That's going to do it for us. Again, if you like this type of video, we have plenty coming out, quarterbacks, tight ends, running backs, wide receivers galore here on the channel. So, hit that subscribe button and check out another.