Alabama QB Ty Simpson, who’s on the Browns’ radar, is better than Fernando Mendoza, according to one NFL Draft expert
CLEVELAND, Ohio — With Fernando Mendoza widely regarded as the best quarterback in the 2026 class and the slam-dunk No. 1 overall pick by the Raiders, one prominent analyst says not so fast.
ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky dropped a meteor into the middle of the NFL Draft world on Monday by ranking Alabama’s Ty Simpson ahead of the 2025 national champion and Heisman Trophy winner from Indiana. The Browns had Simpson in for one of their first top 30 pre-draft visits, and will consider drafting him with one of their early selections.
They currently have the No. 6 and No. 24 picks in the first round, and the No. 39 pick in the second.
“I think Ty Simpson is QB1,” Orlovsky, the former NFL quarterback, said Monday on ESPN’s Get Up. “I think Ty Simpson is the best quarterback in this class.”
His fellow ESPN analyst Mike Tannenbaum, a former NFL GM, backed him by posting on X that “in talking to clubs this opinion is shared by other teams as well.”
Orlovsky noted that the differentiator between good quarterbacks and great ones starts with “what do you do in moments of panic with the football?”
After extensive film study of both QBs, he gives the clear edge in making “real NFL throws” in those moments to Simpson, who started only 15 games at Alabama, all during the 2025 season.
“When I say NFL throws, I’m talking 15, 20, 25-yard in-routes, crossing routes, deep corner or sail routes,” Orlovsky said.
In declaring Simpson superior on those intermediate routes under duress, he went so far as to say “it’s not even close in that regard.”
As for the downfield throws, Orlovsky stated that Mendoza (6-5, 236) is “good at it,” but that the two are close in that category.
He also opined that Simpson took over more games during the season, and was asked to execute more pro-style concepts, with high-level processing and downfield accuracy. He added that Simpson suffered from a lot of dropped passes, while Mendoza, who ran a lot of RPOs, benefitted from premier receivers making contested catches.
He clarified, however that he wasn’t denigrating Mendoza, but prefers Simpson (6-1, 211) in the “15 to 20 range” over “Mendoza at 1.”
Orlovsky has flirted with going out on such a limb, but declined to commit until Monday. Last week, on the Pat McAfee Show, he suggested that there wasn’t much of a gap between the two signal-callers.
“I think he’s surgical throwing, like, real NFL concepts down the field,” Orlovsky said of Simpson. “He’s phenomenal down in the red zone. When you watch him, when I watch him, I see so much of Brock Purdy. The layered throws, the intermediate game, that ball that’s 15, 20 yards down the field, it’s consistently in the right place.”
The Browns, who would jump at the chance to take Mendoza if he miraculously slipped to them at No. 6, plan to conduct an open competition for the starting job between Deshaun Watson and 2025 fifth-round pick Shedeur Sanders — unless they draft a quarterback.
“I love how often and consistently he has to throw either between defenders or over defenders,” Orlovsky said. “Because that’s real life for high-end quarterbacks in the NFL. There’s play-making ability there. There’s ownership and control of the line of scrimmage. …I just am very impressed with his tape.”
Browns coach Todd Monken can get all the intel he needs on Simpson from his dad, Jason Simpson, the head football coach at UT Martin. Monken and Jason Simpson share a Southern Miss connection, with Simpson having played baseball there and Monken having served as head coach there from 2013-15.
“I like Ty,” Monken said Wednesday at the NFL Combine. “I liked Ty when he was coming out. When I first got to Georgia, they hadn’t offered him and I went up there and talked to his dad. In fact, his dad, Jason, is a Southern Miss alum and I was the head coach at Southern Miss. So we got to know them really well. Really fond of Ty, obviously really good football player. Fired up for him because in today’s day and age, for him to stay as long as he did at Alabama and then get a chance to be the starting quarterback’s pretty cool.”
Simpson, 24, had to wait his turn at Alabama for three years, including the last two behind Jalen Milroe. But in his 15 starts last season, he threw 28 TDs and only five INTs, leading Alabama to an 11-4 mark and a quarterfinal appearance against Indiana in the College Football Playoffs. In his first eight games, he threw 20 touchdowns against only one interception, with a 67.8 completion percentage before a bout of gastritis down the stretch caused him to lose 25 pounds, which he’s since put back on.
With only one month to go before the draft, the QB rankings might not be as clearcut as originally thought.
Football Insider newsletter free trial: Take a minute and sign up for a free trial of our Football Insider newsletter, featuring exclusive content from cleveland.com’s Browns reporters.
