Time flies when you’re having fun, and apparently not moreso than when the consensus No. 2 quarterback available in the draft met this week with the new head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
“It was really cool,” that quarterback, Alabama’s Ty Simpson, told reporters at the NFL combine Friday, “because (he and Steelers coach Mike McCarthy) were just going back and forth.”
Simpson was designated one of, by rule, up to 45 formal meetings allotted to the Steelers during the combine. Each, by league edict, is limited to 20 minutes.
“By the time that we were finished,” Simpson said, “it felt like (just) five minutes just because of how much fun we had.
“So I love Coach McCarthy, love the Steelers, I love those guys, and I’m super excited to get to know them.”
The Steelers and Simpson might spend the next eight weeks getting to know each other even more. And if things work out, maybe — just maybe — it could be a relationship that blossoms for years to come.
As things stood headed into the combine this week in Indianapolis, Simpson is projected as a late-first round pick. The Steelers — in dire need of a young franchise quarterback of the future — hold the No. 21 overall selection.
Depending on how the draft unfolds and the Steelers’ evaluation of Simpson, the two parties could be brought together.
A significant step in that process came at the combine, and from Simpson’s account, his sitdown meeting was a home run.
“Coach McCarthy’s the guy, man,” said Simpson, who went 11-4 in leading Alabama to the College Football Playoff quarterfinals this past season. “It was funny. We’d go in there, ask a couple questions, and we were just talking ball, going back and forth, talking about pass concepts, talking about protection, talking about situations … and then situations that’ve come up in his career that he asked me about what I thought about it.”
The son of a Division I head coach — Jason Simpson has led UT Martin for 20 seasons — Ty Simpson fits in chatting about the sport at a grad-school level, even when doing so with one of the NFL’s most respected offensive minds this century.
“It was just two guys working ball, right?” Simpson said to gathered media from the floor of Indiana Convention Center. “It was cool to just see us talk about footwork, like talk about four ‘verts’ (wide receiver route concepts), talk about situational football in 2-minute (drills), bringing up scenarios that he’s had in his career to where they’re crucial. ‘What would you do in that situation?’
“Whether I got their question right or wrong, it was still cool to realize like, ‘Hey, this is what had happened, this is what the answer I was looking for, this is why.’ And we would just bounce ideas back and forth to each other.”
Now listed at 6-foot-2 and 208 pounds, Simpson was one of the nation’s top quarterback recruits for the incoming 2022 class when he committed to the then-national champion powerhouse Alabama program led by legendary coach Nick Saban.
But Simpson watched as a freshman while reigning Heisman Trophy winner and future NFL No. 1 overall pick Bryce Young led the Crimson Tide, and he sat behind Jalen Milroe in 2023 and 2024. Milroe would finish sixth in the 2023 Heisman balloting and was a third-round pick in last year’s draft.
Simpson is projected to go higher than that this spring but certainly not ahead of 2025 Heisman winner Fernando Mendoza of Indiana. Mendoza is widely expected to go No. 1 overall to the Las Vegas Raiders.
Part of what is holding Simpson back from that level of acclaim is that he has only one season (15 starts) of college experience as the QB1. In this era of easy transfer, it’s almost unheard of for a former blue-chip recruit to wait through three seasons as a backup before getting his chance.
In some ways, that has become a positive in the eyes of NFL teams. Simpson stuck out his situation, learned, persevered and stayed loyal.
“I’m really fond of Ty,” said new Cleveland Browns coach Todd Monken, who, as Georgia’s offensive coordinator, worked to recruit Simpson. “Obviously, really good football player. Fired up for him because in today’s day and age, for him to stay as long as he did at Alabama and then get a chance to be the starting quarterback is pretty cool. And that is really cool for him to live out his dream at the school he chose.”
Simpson, of course, doesn’t get to choose his NFL team. And even if he had a preference, he surely wouldn’t express it.
But from the way he spoke Friday, it sure sounds as if Simpson has a legitimate affinity for the Steelers and, in large part, because of McCarthy.
“(He is) a guy like that who has had success in the league for a long time and is well respected,” Simpson said. “Any time that I get to sit in an interview and talk to him and just soak up all that knowledge, it’s (everything) I could ask for.”
