{"id":859285,"date":"2026-04-07T16:29:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T16:29:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/859285\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T16:29:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T16:29:13","slug":"cardinals-projected-to-make-aggressive-move-for-qb-ty-simpson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/859285\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardinals Projected to Make Aggressive Move For QB Ty Simpson"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Arizona Cardinals need a quarterback, and Alabama\u2019s Ty Simpson<\/a> is one of the top passers in the 2026 NFL Draft. A former five-star recruit out of high school, Simpson spent most of his collegiate career as a reserve but earned the full-time starting role in 2025. Earning Second-Team All-SEC honors, the quarterback finished his redshirt Junior season completing 64.5% of his passes for 3,567 yards, 28 touchdowns, and five interceptions.<\/p>\n

Widely considered to be the QB2 in the draft, Simpson will likely be a first-round pick, and\u00a0Bleacher Report\u2018s Brent Sobleski<\/a> believes the Arizona Cardinals will be the ones to secure his services. In a recent mock draft, the NFL analyst projected that the Cardinals will trade up with the Buffalo Bills and select the Alabama product with the 26th-overall pick.<\/p>\n

\u201cArizona currently has Jacoby Brissett and Gardner Minshew II as its quarterback options,\u201d Sobleski writes. \u201cThey\u2019re two of the league\u2019s best backups, but neither should be looked at as anything more than a short-term bridge. A trade-up is vital, because the Cardinals currently sit behind the Jets atop the second round.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cardinals Project to Trade Up For Quarterback Ty Simpson<\/p>\n

The Cardinals might not have the worst quarterback room in the league, but they undoubtedly have the most underwhelming. Jacoby Brissett is one of the league\u2019s best backups<\/a>, but he\u2019s not a starting-caliber passer. The former third-round pick did his best last year in relief of Kyler Murray, but his underwhelming record speaks for itself. Starting in 12 games while appearing in 14, the longtime journeyman finished the season with a 1-11 record while completing 64.9% of his passes for 3,366 yards, 23 touchdowns, and eight interceptions. Gardner Minshew, meanwhile, had some ok moments with the Jaguars and Colts but isn\u2019t anyone\u2019s idea of a starting quarterback.<\/p>\n

Simpson doesn\u2019t have Josh Allen\u2019s physical tools, but he meets the minimum threshold required to succeed at the professional level. He played well against strong competition in college, knows how to read a defense, operate an offense, and generally keep a passing attack on schedule. While he is prone to the occasional ugly miss and won\u2019t make too many plays out of structure, he has the potential to be a franchise quarterback. Quite frankly, Arizona could use someone like that to bring some type of hope to the franchise.<\/p>\n

Where to Draft Him<\/p>\n

The Arizona Cardinals currently have the third-overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, which is probably too early to select Simpson. While quarterback is unquestionably the most important position in football, it\u2019s hard to pass up an elite talent for a good-but-not-great prospect like Simpson. Assuming the Las Vegas Raiders select Fernando Mendoza<\/a> with the first-overall pick, there won\u2019t be a quarterback on the board worthy of a top-five selection.<\/p>\n

The back half of the first round, however, is a different discussion. The Cardinals only have one first-round pick, but they could easily trade back into the first round. Selecting a quarterback in the first round is important, as teams get one more year of contractual control. Simpson might not start right away, but he won\u2019t need to. The Cardinals have two competent short-term quarterback options in Brissett and Minshew, so Simpson can develop at his own pace with no pressure to start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Arizona Cardinals need a quarterback, and Alabama\u2019s Ty Simpson is one of the top passers in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":859286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2078],"tags":[4955,375,390,2757,2604,1327,7,6,20708],"class_list":{"0":"post-859285","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arizona-cardinals","8":"tag-2026-nfl-draft","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-arizona-cardinals","11":"tag-arizona-cardinals-draft","12":"tag-arizonacardinals","13":"tag-cardinals","14":"tag-football","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-ty-simpson"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116364376062981072","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=859285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/859286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=859285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=859285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=859285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}