{"id":877390,"date":"2026-04-29T01:06:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T01:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/877390\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T01:06:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T01:06:18","slug":"espn-cleveland-bashes-ty-simpson-pick-id-rather-have-taylen-green","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/877390\/","title":{"rendered":"ESPN Cleveland bashes Ty Simpson pick: \u2018I\u2019d rather have Taylen Green\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Cleveland Browns got a better quarterback in the sixth round than who the Los Angeles Rams drafted with the 13th overall pick, according to a veteran reporter at ESPN. Should the Rams have waited to draft a quarterback or is this just Shedeur Sanders 2.0?<\/p>\n

ESPN Cleveland\u2019s Tony Grossi said on the radio this week that he\u2019d rather have sixth round pick Taylen Green than Ty Simpson. \u201cThis guy\u2019s got traits,\u201d said Grossi, who has been working for ESPN since 2012<\/a>, \u201cAthletic ability. I\u2019d rather have (Green) than (Garrett Nussmeier), Ty Simpson, or Carson Beck.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the other hosts on 850 ESPN Cleveland said, \u201cI totally agree\u201d to every quarterback listed.<\/p>\n

Green was the 182nd overall pick after a career at Boise State and Arkansas. He completed 60% of his passes last season with 19 touchdowns, 11 interceptions, and 777 rushing yards with eight more touchdowns.<\/p>\n

NFL.com gave him a \u201c99 athletic score\u201d,<\/a> whatever that means.<\/p>\n

Although his athletic testing was off the charts, Lance Zierlein says that Green \u201cputs the ball in harm\u2019s way at an alarming rate\u201d and that he struggles with \u201cprocessing\u201d, \u201ctiming\u201d, and \u201cpost-snap recognition\u201d. There are reasons that every team, including the Browns, bypassed Green in the draft many times over the first 181 picks.<\/p>\n

This does not mean that Ty Simpson will prove to be a great pick or that Green could not get better and eventually start in the NFL.<\/p>\n

It is, however, so on brand for Cleveland Browns fans to think the bar is so low on the team that Taylen Green feels somehow exciting compared to every other option that could have been available. This is after all the same fanbase that thinks Shedeur Sanders should be handed the starting job from day one despite being a fifth round pick who was by some accounts the worst quarterback in the NFL last season.<\/p>\n

Grossi compares Green to Malik Willis and says that it could take him a few years before he contributes as a quarterback. Why do you think he chose Willis instead of, I don\u2019t know, 300 other examples he could have used of drafted quarterbacks who did carve out NFL careers?<\/p>\n

Because Willis was not a first round pick (but as a 3rd rounder, was drafted three rounds earlier than Green)Willis is also a quarterback who tested well as an athleteWillis was not an accurate passer coming into the league, and as far as we know still is not an accurate passer; Willis started one game last season<\/p>\n

It is easy to pick a QB du jour who \u201cfeels\u201d like a good pick and say, \u201cHey, let\u2019s compare our guy to that guy\u201d because what else was Grossi going to do? \u201cYou know who he is? Stetson Bennett.\u201d<\/p>\n

No, he\u2019s probably not going to mention that there are many more quarterbacks, like Bennett, who were drafted on day three and that was the pinnacle of their pro careers.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know if Grossi was saying that he\u2019d rather have Green in the 6th than Simpson in the 1st\u2014if the Browns wanted Ty Simpson, they would have had to pick him at 9th overall after they traded down\u2014but the message is pretty strong here that he feels like Cleveland did better at quarterback in the draft than the Los Angeles Rams did.<\/p>\n

Which feels like a very Browns thing to do despite that other franchise being\u2026the Browns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cleveland Browns got a better quarterback in the sixth round than who the Los Angeles Rams drafted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":877391,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2079],"tags":[7,1014,58,2619,2444,2611,6,424],"class_list":["post-877390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles-rams","tag-football","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-rams","tag-los-angeles-rams-draft","tag-losangeles","tag-losangelesrams","tag-nfl","tag-rams"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116485317130392285","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877390","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=877390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/877391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=877390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=877390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=877390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}