Albert Breer on Ty Simpson To Rams, Ohio State’s Big Day, Irish RB Duo

And what Sean McVeigh does in Los Angeles, that's ideal.

All right.

Welcome in.

It is the Breer Report for Friday, April 24th.

The first round of the 2026 NFL draft is in the books.

Great night.

Appreciate everybody who came out and joined us in the live stream.

We got a great response from that.

Uh, big shout out to, to Alex and Shelby, the guys behind the scenes, and of course, my buddy Connor for running Point for us.

Um, great experience.

We'd love to do more of that.

Be sure to give us your feedback on Um, how you like the show, I believe it's still up on YouTube, so you guys can go take a look at some of the highlights from it from last night if you wanna do that.

Um, but we're here this morning to, to recap the first night of the NFL draft.

A couple of things I wanna get to.

Um, and then we will start looking forward to round 2 and 3 , which will be tonight.

Um, and I think the biggest story, and this is where we'll start of, of night one of the NFL draft was the Los Angeles Rams spending the 13th overall pick on Ty Simpson.

Now, I think there's a good chance if they don't take Ty Simpson 13th overall.

That he falls all the way through the first round.

And so, to me, what's so interesting about this is you have a kid here who I think probably went into the night, not sure if he's gonna be selected, and then the dream scenario plays out.

There are connections there between the Simpson family and the Rams organization.

Uh, Ty's father, Jason Simpson is the head coach at UT Martin.

He's got a strong relationship, good friendship with Rams general manager, Les Snead.

In fact, that relationship is close enough where Snead counseled the family on Simpson's decision to Come out and, and to declare for the draft.

And remember, he had some big money NIL offers to transfer, he decided to turn those down, go into the draft, and then lo and behold, they're the Rams at 13 to take him.

Now, I think when you look at the fit here.

It's really, really good.

And the, the reason why is for the 1st 89 games this season, my buddy Todd McShay said this, um, to me at, at, at the beginning of the, the draft process, and as I talked to more and more people, you know, you kind of figure out like, you know, there's a very, there's a, there's a reality to it.

It's probably the best quarterback in the country through 9 or 10 weeks.

It was a real Heisman contender, had Alabama in contention for a national title, and then the wheels came off at the end.

Well, what happened?

So in in week 10 against uh against uh the against Oklahoma, Brent Venables, the Sooners head coach, who was one of the foremost defensive minds in the sport, was able to find a flaw in their pass protection, blew things open, caused problems for Bama the rest of the year cause other teams were copycatting it.

The Bama run game had already struggled, was falling apart.

Now you got Simpson getting the crap knocked out of him.

So his play declined, and so there were some questions about that.

There's the 15-star thing.

Now, he would combat that by saying, I spent my 1st 2 years in college and practice, competing against the Nick Saban defense in a very intense work environment.

All that's true , but there are real, real questions here.

Um, late in the season, his accuracy started to suffer because his feet were a mess.

Why were his feet a mess?

Cause he was getting sped up because he was getting knocked around a lot.

I think the bottom line here is that when I talked to people about Ty Simpson, the big thing was this is a guy who needs to go sit somewhere.

This is a guy who needs to recalibrate himself fundamentally a little bit , but based on the amount that they put on him, that he had to carry the team, mentally, all the stuff he was responsible for at Alabama, how fast he can play when he's right.

How he anticipates, how he's able to make NFL throws.

There's stuff to work with there.

You just have to rewire the footwork a little bit.

You'd like to sit him for a little bit, give him a chance to learn, and I think he's going to a place, a rhythm and timing offense and what Sean McVeigh does in Los Angeles, that's ideal, because they'll be able to sit him.

They'll be able to rewire his feet.

They have guys who are experts at doing that.

They'll get to work, you know, with Dave Ragone and Nate Shieldhasas there in addition to Sean McVeigh, and get a red shirt year, maybe two red shirt years, no pressure to play him.

And then whenever Matthew Stafford decides it's time to move on, you've got a guy who you feel like maybe can elevate into being a really good NFL quarterback.

Now the question is gonna be the ceiling.

And that is an interesting piece of this because you may remember 5 years ago, they felt like they had capped out with Jared Goff, and so they make the big trade for Matthew Stafford, which puts them over the top and gets them to a Super Bowl championship.

I would just sort of wonder what Ty Simpson, I, I, I don't think it's, can he be successful as a young player?

Can he acclimate to the NFL?

It's, it's, you know, 567 years in.

It is gonna be a guy you're comfortable paying.

70, 75, whatever that number winds up being a million dollars too, and I think that's the real question, but um certainly a curveball.

I , I think part of this is the fallout of the Trent McDuffie trade.

You know, you give up the 29th pick for Trent McDuffie, which I think was a great move.

Um, but 29 would probably have been a more appropriate place to take Ty Simpson.

But if you think the quarterback, if you think the guy can be a quarterback for the next decade, it doesn't matter where you take him.

If they, if it doesn't work out, we're gonna look at this and say, it took him 13th overall, what a reach.

If it does work out, you probably won't remember what number he was drafted.

So, um, big dice roll by the Rams, but something that they feel like can set up their future.

Our second topic, my alma mater, the Ohio State University, 4 first-round picks.

That is 99 first-round picks in school history.

That is the most by any school by a very wide margin.

Uh, incidentally, the 100th first-round pick will likely be Jeremiah Smith in 2027.

I want to take you through the first, the, the, the four first-round picks though.

I think there's an interesting story with each of them.

And the first one, and this surprised me a little bit that he was the first one off the board.

I would have said he'd be the second one.

Off the board.

He wound up being the first one off the board.

That was Carnell Tate, 4th overall to the Tennessee Titans.

This is the Titans investing back in their young quarterback, and this is looking at it and saying we have a lot of complimentary weapons offensively.

We don't have a guy who draws coverage, who is a true number one.

I think Carnell Tate's got the ability to elevate, to become a number one, to grow with Cam Ward, and it's a middle of the fairway pick, tough, he is a great blocker, he plays with an edge, he's a polished route runner, he can get the ball downfield.

I mean, this guy checks a lot of boxes.

Now, does he have a Ja'Marr Chase type of physical profile?

That's the question.

It's like, he can be really good, can he be great?

Um, but, you know, I think this for the Titans is finding somebody that Cam Ward can grow with and somebody who can help them build the culture that Robert Salah is looking to build, and they come back in the 1st round and get Kelrick Faulk, which takes care of the edge need.

I actually thought the 4th pick was gonna be Arvel Reese.

So then the guy who was the 5th pick is who I thought was gonna be the 4th pick, that's Arvel Reese going to the Giants.

And the interesting thing here, they view him as an off-ball linebacker.

Not everybody saw it this way, but they view him as an off-ball linebacker who can play down on 3rd down.

So the way this looks is in Dennard Wilson's 3-4 base front, you're gonna have on one edge, Abdul Carter, on the other edge, Brian Burns.

You will have Arvell Reese as an off-ball linebacker that was a need for them, and then when they go into passing situations, now you've got this chess piece as a pass rusher.

And Abdul Carter is sort of the same way.

Brian Burns is the same way.

You can move all of these guys around.

I, I think they're gonna be able to do some really cool stuff upfront with those three guys.

I think the back end piece of it is Kavon Thibodeaux likely now on the block, wouldn't surprise me if he's traded over the next couple of days for a 3rd or 4th round pick.

Um, the, the next Buckey had to go with Sonny Styles, perfect fit for the Washington Commanders.

Big, long, can cover ground.

That's what Dan Quinn's always looked for in his linebackers, and he's got some versatility which I think will appeal to Devonte Jones, the new defensive coordinator who coached under Brian Flores in, in Minnesota.

Uh, this is very much a, a, a Dan Quinn type of player though, and a guy who I think could have the green dot on his helmet pretty quickly in his career.

And then one of my favorite picks in the draft, the Dallas Cowboys moving up a slot to go and get Caleb Downs.

This is a battleship commander.

I had a head coach tell me yesterday that if you put Vegas odds on which player was going to have the best chance to get a gold jacket, the odds would be the shortest on Caleb Downs becoming a Hall of Famer.

I think this is a guy who can be a tone setter, a culture changer for you.

Um, I think he's gonna be a captain within his 2nd or 3rd year.

And as a player, I think he's a Troy Polamalu type of safety.

Um, you can move him around all over the place.

He's instinctive, he's smart.

Absolutely love that pick, and I think the Cowboys are gonna wind up with a player who's gonna be with them for a decade and be all pro at some point in his career.

Finally, our third topic, the two Notre Dame running backs go, and this to me is so interesting.

So at 3, you get Jeremiah Love , who is the 8th back over the last 13 draft cycles.

Now this is joining Todd Gurley.

In 2015, Zeke Elliott in 2016, Christian McCaffrey and Leonard Fournett, 2017, Saquon Barkley in 2018, Bjon Robinson in 2023, and then, of course, Ashton Genty last year.

Jeremiah Love is what teams look for now if they're going to take a back that high, which is a guy who's big enough to play between the tackles, physical enough to, to grind out tough yards.

And yet can play for you on 3rd down.

So the big back who's a 3-down back, that's what Saquan was, that's what Zeke was, that's what Todd Gurley was, that's what Bjon Robinson is.

Christian McCaffrey, a little smaller, but it's so good between the tackles, and that very much is what Jeremiah Love is.

It gives the Cardinals a chance.

The coaches loved him.

It gives the Cardinals a chance.

To be competitive in year one.

My question is how the timelines match up.

And so now it looks like the Cardinals get their quarterback of the future in 2027.

Jeremiah Love becomes a big piece of that equation now.

And if you look and and going back over history, Todd Gurley got to the Rams a year before Jared Goff, Zeke Elliott got to to to Dallas, same year as Dak Prescott.

Those guys were incredibly important to the development of those young quarterbacks because it gave them an outlet in the passing game, and they got them in 2nd and 6th and 3rd and 2 more often.

So down the line.

I think Jeremiah Love becomes an important piece for whatever young quarterback you wind up hitching your wagon to if you're Mike LaFleur and you're able to manage him through year one with Tyler Algier and James Connor already there for you in the backfield.

And then on the back end, the Seahawks, one of the smartest organizations in football, take Jaar and Price to replace Kenneth Walker.

They got Zach Charbonnet coming back off the knee injury.

Uh, yeah, he is going into a contract year, so you fortify that position long term.

I think Jadon Price has great upside, and there's still a lot of meat on the bone there.

Uh, his odometer is lower than other running backs because the fact that he was splitting time with, with Jeremiah Love in college.

And I think there's a big picture thing to look at here.

And that is that a lot of smart franchises are investing in running backs, and you wonder if it's gotten to the point where that position has been devalued to the point where smart organizations are looking at it and saying, no, that position is now a value.

And I go back, I go back a couple of years and I remember it getting my attention when Josh Jacobs and Saquon Barkley, and Derrick Henry were free agents, and they signed with the Packers, the Eagles, and the Ravens.

I remember thinking to myself, those aren't stupid teams.

Like dumb teams don't do these sorts of like there's something there, something to dig into.

Those all wound up being very good signings, and it's because the price they paid was the virtual equivalent of what a slot receiver.

Sawan's contract was similar to Darnell Mooney's contract in Atlanta.

Darnell Mooney's.

Number 3 receiver.

And so, the positions become devalued to the point where now it is a value.

And I think smart organizations are realizing that.

And the Seahawks now, they move on from Kenneth Walker, but they're able to get a really good one and a guy who, again, I think his best, his best football is ahead of him.

And Jada and Price, you take him to the bottom of the first round, and now you're able to kind of keep the offensive structure that you had when you won a Super Bowl a year ago with Kenneth Walker and for most of the year, Zach Charbonnet there in the backfield.

Appreciate you guys coming out, appreciate you guys following us throughout draft season.

We're not done yet.

We got 2 days of the draft left to go.

But I do want your feedback.

I want any sort of good, bad that you think we did over the course of the last couple of months, so you can leave that down below here on the YouTube page.

You can also get to me on my social media at Albert Breer on Twitter, at Albert Arbreer on Facebook, at Albert_Breer on Instagram.

Again, appreciate you guys following throughout draft season.

We will see you next time.