The Ringer’s Todd McShay: Jets’ Ty Simpson Interest Feels Like a Smokescreen

Todd McShay is not buying the Jets-to-Ty-Simpson chatter, and he says so plainly. The Ringer's draft analyst tells Rich he thinks the noise out of New York is a smokescreen, planted to make Arizona sweat and force the Cardinals to move up before the Jets are even on the clock.

McShay walks through the strategic logic. Everything Aaron Glenn and Darren Mougey have done, he says, points at 2027, not this April. The Jets have conditioned their fan base for a longer build. They told the Cowboys they would take the second overall pick this year and the first next year. Turning around now and spending capital on a quarterback with only 15 career starts, in the second round no less, would blow up that timeline and forfeit the fifth-year option that comes with a first-round pick.

That is the part McShay keeps circling. If you actually believe in Simpson, you take him in the first, you trade up if you have to, and you secure the contractual control. You do not let him slip to 33 and then tell your fans that the Gino Smith bridge year just became something else entirely. The math of it does not line up with anything the Jets have signaled.

So what is the play. McShay thinks the Jets benefit hugely if Arizona panics and jumps ahead of them. A quarterback moving up the board kicks a position player down, maybe the exact one New York wanted at 7. And the Jets already hold the catbird seat at pick 33 after winning the round-robin tiebreaker for round two with the Raiders, Titans, and Cardinals. Rich points out, citing Adam Schefter, that the 33rd pick has been traded in roughly four of the last five drafts. A whole night of phone calls between rounds turns that slot into leverage.

McShay puts a bow on it. Arizona moving up not only kicks down a player the Jets want, it can kick down a player a team behind the Jets wants, which adds value to that 33rd pick if New York decides to deal it. Dante Moore staying at Oregon, McShay adds, is a tell. The Ducks paid him to stick around, and any sober Oregon fan understands the kid will be a much better prospect in 2027 anyway.

The takeaway from McShay is clean. The Jets are happy to let the Simpson smoke billow because it benefits them whether or not they ever actually grab the matchstick. Read the front for what it is.