Daniel Jeremiah on Rams’ Gamble & How Many Games Mendoza Starts for Raiders

Ty Simpson's landing in Los Angeles will be a referendum on a question the league has been quietly avoiding, NFL Network's Daniel Jeremiah told Rich, calling the Rams' first-round selection of the Alabama quarterback "a fascinating case study on sample size" given that Simpson started only fifteen games in college and now sits behind Matthew Stafford for at least one season and possibly more.

"The people that argued for Ty Simpson to be a top half of the first round pick versus those of us who thought he was a second round pick, we said the same things about him as a player," Jeremiah said. "We agree on the strengths that he showed. We agreed that from the footwork, the release, the ability to work through progressions, we agree on all that stuff. The difference is, there's a large group of people, not just me and other people doing this on television, but a lot of teams that are fascinated to see this is going to buck the trend. If this is successful of this limited sample size, the fifteen starts, we just haven't seen it."

Jeremiah, citing a conversation with Joel Klatt, reached for a golf analogy to make the math concrete. "Can you be a great golfer if you just go to the range for six years and then hop out on the course? I mean, you're getting a lot of practice, you're getting a lot of work in, but you're not really playing."

The second half of the conversation moved to Las Vegas, where Rich recapped a heated on-air bet with Charles Davis over how many games rookie Fernando Mendoza will start for the Raiders this season. Rich said producer Mark Tydlman pushed the topic in his ear during a commercial break, and Rich ran with it, asking whether the larger number would be Mendoza's starts or the Raiders' draft position next year.

"I think you said seven starts for Mendoza, ninth for the Raiders in the draft position," Rich said. "And then it was on, man. Charles was like, 'They're starting him.'"

Jeremiah's read on the Raiders front office is that no one in the building is in a hurry. "When you have a first-year head coach, there's no rush," he said. "A lot of times you get these different timelines with GMs and coaches and the front office, and one wants to take their time and the other one's like, no, no, no, we got to get this guy out there not only to win, but provide some hope so that we can all get, you know, stay employed. This is a very secure group from upstairs to downstairs. And I just don't think they're going to be in a rush."

He layered Kirk Cousins's contract on top of the calculus and pointed to Tom Brady's repeated public stance that rookies should sit, watch, and learn how a professional prepares before they play.