Believe only half of what you see and none of what you hear in the final days leading up to the 2026 NFL Draft. That said, Mel Kiper Jr. gave the latest on what he’s hearing about the Pittsburgh Steelers’ chances of drafting Ty Simpson in the first round.
“[Mike] McCarthy’s in there. He has to love this guy at 21. I think like in the second, love in the first,” Kiper said Thursday on ESPN’s Unsportsmanlike of what it would take for the Steelers to take a first-round quarterback. “I’ve heard no, we’ll see. It’s been pretty quiet on that front.”
Kiper isn’t the only one hearing that. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Gerry Dulac has said numerous times that Simpson isn’t what the Steelers are looking for, and they’d draft a QB this year no earlier than the third round. And Todd McShay said he knows “for a fact” the Steelers aren’t going to draft Simpson.
Also, Pittsburgh didn’t have Simpson in for a pre-draft visit, which is usually a strong indicator that he’s off the table for a potential first-round selection by the team.
The Steelers either don’t have interest in Simpson in the first round, or they’re laying a heck of a smokescreen to throw other teams off their trail. The latter is always possible this time of year, but it would require the Steelers to draft a first-round quarterback after having almost no pre-draft contact beyond a brief Combine meeting.
You could excuse the lack of a pre-draft visit if there had been a Pro Day dinner, but Omar Khan and Mike McCarthy weren’t even at Alabama for his workout. At that point, the process would feel extremely flawed if they drafted him.
If Simpson somehow falls to No. 53, could they take a flyer on him? Sure, but all signs point to him being off the board by then. Stranger things have happened during the draft, but this doesn’t feel like one of them. If Simpson ends up a Steeler, it’ll be a genuine surprise.