2026 NFL Draft: Decoding Sean McVay’s tense reaction after Rams baffling Ty Simpson pick

The Los Angeles Rams made the most shocking pick during the first round of the NFL Draft on Thursday and it’s possible that no one was more shocked about the pick than head coach Sean McVay. At 13th overall, the Rams decided to take Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson, and I’m no body language expert, but it looked like McVay would have preferred to have taken literally any other player at 13th overall (though there is now some thought he was just doing his best acting job). 

McVay’s reaction to the pick during the Rams’ post-draft press conference went viral almost instantly, so with that in mind, let’s break down the entire situation. 

Why the pick didn’t really make any sense

The Rams’ decision to take Simpson is almost unheard of for a team in their situation. With the pick, the Rams became the first team since 1967 to enter the draft with the reigning MVP at quarterback and still spend a first-round pick on a QB. The last time it happened came with the Packers, who had Bart Starr coming off an MVP season in 1966. Despite that fact, they decided to take Don Horn at 25th overall in 1967. Yes, this was 50 years ago, but the way it played out in Green Bay should be a lesson for the Rams: Horn rode the bench for two years behind Starr before finally getting a chance to start after the former MVP got injured in Horn’s third season with the team. Overall, Horn started just six games in four seasons.  

The problem with taking Simpson is that the Rams are a team that’s trying to win now and Simpson simply isn’t a player who’s going to help them win this year. According to the oddsmakers, the Rams are the Super Bowl favorites for 2026 and when you’re the favorite, you don’t make a pick like this, you look for a player who can contribute right now. According to CBS Sports Research, the Rams are just the third Super Bowl favorite over the past 50 years to select a QB in the first round, joining the 1980 Steelers (Mark Malone) and the 1999 Vikings (Daunte Culpepper). Both quarterbacks started zero games in their rookie seasons and both quarterbacks only had one season with a winning record in their careers. That doesn’t bode well for Simpson. 

Rams general manager Les Snead was actually asked on Thursday why he didn’t draft a player who could contribute this year and he gave an interesting answer. 

“I hate sitting here and going, ‘You’re a player away in a draft from the Super Bowl,'” Snead said. “At the end of the day, what we want to accomplish in the draft and any acquisitions that we have is try to engineer as competent a team as possible.”

Snead has been one of the best general managers in the NFL over the past decade, but his answer certainly has some holes in it. If you’re trying to put together a competent team, using the 13th overall pick on a player who’s not going to play this year doesn’t help much. 

The Rams made it clear that Matthew Stafford is going to be the quarterback for as long as he wants to play, so if he wants to play for two or three more years, then Simpson is going to be sitting on the bench for two or three more years. 

McVay’s reaction said it all

If there’s one coach who wears his emotions on his face, it’s definitely McVay, and he was wearing those emotions on Thursday night, and everyone on the internet seemed to notice. Let’s check in to see what McVay looked like as the Rams’ post-draft press conference was kicking off. 

McVay let Snead answer the first two questions of the press conference and didn’t offer a single word. 

Out of the first four questions that McVay DID respond to on Thursday night, he didn’t give a single answer that went longer than eight words. He also wouldn’t commit to making Simpson the backup quarterback when he got asked who would be the No. 2 guy behind Stafford this year. 

And, let’s watch some video of that answer. 

At 13th overall, you’d think it would be a given that Simpson would be the backup, but McVay is clearly not ready to commit to anything. If Simpson doesn’t win the backup job, that would make a bad pick even worse for the Rams. 

Another interesting part of the press conference came when McVay was asked whether Simpson was the Rams’ first target at 13th overall. 

“There were a lot of players that we liked, but when you do look at it, I think the thing you liked about the body of work is — let’s make one thing clear, this is Matthew’s [Stafford] team,” McVay said. “You get a chance to be able to address the backup quarterback. We’ve got Stetson [Bennett]. We’ve talked about the importance of [Quarterback] Jimmy [Garoppolo].”

That sounds like a guy who was completely happy with his quarterback situation going into the draft and didn’t think the team needed to add to it, especially at 13th overall. McVay did eventually dive into the answer a little bit more, but what he said wasn’t much better. 

“There were a lot of players that we liked and there was a lot of thought that went into it,” McVay said of picking 13th overall. “We do feel really fortunate that when you look at the 13th pick, we were able to get that where Atlanta had an interest in getting a player last year. We would’ve taken [Terrance] Ferguson with our first round pick last year. To move back and to still get the guy that we wanted, and then to basically be able to get an extra pick and then oh by the way, with your original one, go get a player like [cornerback] Trent McDuffie. A lot of different things, but we’re always going to make decisions that we think are best for the short and the long term. We will be excited to be able to get to work with him.”

In McVay’s defense, he did smile when he made the draft call to Simpson, but even that was a little awkward. 

Based on McVay’s reaction, it seems he would have preferred to see the Rams take a player who could contribute this year, but that wasn’t the case. Now, everyone in L.A. will be hoping Simpson can be the QB of the future. 

If the Rams had passed on Simpson, they still had plenty of options on the draft board: They could have given Stafford an offensive weapon by adding Makai Lemon or Kenyon Sadiq. They could have taken a pass-rusher in Akheem Mesidor or Rueben Bain Jr.

Even Ty Simpson seemed surprised by the pick 

During the pre-draft process, the Rams didn’t show much interest in the Alabama quarterback. After he was picked on Thursday, Simpson described all the pre-draft interactions he had with the Rams over the past few months and there wasn’t a lot to describe. 

“It was really brief to be honest with you,” Simpson said of his interactions. “I met with some scouts in Alabama and that was really it. They talked to my agent but that was really wasn’t much.”

There had been some pre-draft reports that Snead was close with Simpson’s father, Jason, but that wasn’t quite accurate. Jason did reach out to Snead to see if it made sense for Ty to enter the NFL Draft, but that was about as far as their relationship went, according to Snead. 

“Jason, we’ve probably been in football about the same amount of years,” Snead said. “When I was playing in the SEC, he was playing in the SEC. He got into coaching. I don’t have a real personal relationship other than he’s been very successful with UT Martin.”

On Ty’s end, he had never even spoken with Snead before the phone call came that he was being picked 13th overall. 

“This was my first time talking to Les, tonight,” Ty said Thursday. “It was something that was super surreal. I know my dad had spoken with him briefly, but this was my first contact and it was cool.”

Simpson also admitted that he had “no clue” that the Rams might draft him. So the rookie QB was surprised by the pick, the head coach appeared to be surprised by the pick, so this pick is going to fall on Snead. If it works out, he’ll look like a genius, but if it doesn’t, it will go down as possibly the most questionable pick of Snead’s career.