It’s difficult to see through the smoke that is the feature of every year’s run-up to the draft.What’s undeniably true is that the hype linking Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson to the Arizona Cardinals is a full-out roar. Numerous pundits say it’s likely, which then leads to many locally losing their minds and taking it as gospel when no one truly knows what a team is thinking.It’s as if people fell off a distant planet, landed on Earth, and now talk about the draft like they’ve never experienced the hype before.For Simpson, who started a mere 15 games in college, every scenario is tossed out from trading down from the three-spot to select him later in the first round, trading into the late first round from the second round or pouncing if none of that happens and he falls to the second selection in round two.To that end, I’m told by a source familiar with the Cardinals' thinking that it's all just chatter and that he would be considered if he falls to the Cardinals, but even then, it's only a maybe.It’s certainly possible that the chatter could lead to the Cardinals trading down at No. 2 in the second round to pick up extra choices from a team that wants Simpson.

Or a team might trade into the first round or with the Jets at the start of the second round to get ahead of the Cardinals.That could benefit the Cardinals by having a player at another position potentially being available that wouldn’t be if Simpson wasn’t picked.Still, there a very limited sure things and everyone should know that by now.Meanwhile, during Thursday’s media session, general manager Monti Ossenfort did acknowledge that “we certainly did our share of evaluation on the quarterbacks in this year's draft.”As for what he looks for in quarterbacks, Ossenfort said, “Big ones for me (are) accuracy and decision making. Those are always at the forefront.

Every year, there are different flavors of quarterbacks: different sizes and different styles, so it looks different. The college game looks different than the NFL game does. It's up to us to really look at those guys and project how they're going to translate into our league.

Every year's different.”Asked specifically about evaluating quarterbacks that didn’t play much, he said, “You have to look at the reasons for that. There are advantages to time on task. There is.

There really is, and I think you have to look at why. Why is there not as big a body of work? Then ultimately, you're going to evaluate the tape that you have to evaluate.“Some guys are going to have more, and some guys’ tape looks better than others.

I think that's just another piece of that evaluation process. I think you just have to go with what you have and with some guys there's less, and some guys there's more. It's just figuring out why exactly that is.”When the discussion switched to current quarterbacks Jacoby Brissett and Gardner Minshew II, not surprisingly, Ossenfort wouldn’t bite when asked who is viewed as the starter.“They both (have) played a lot of ball,” Ossenfort said.

“I think as we sit here today, we’re trying to install a system. You guys (looking at LaFleur) are rolling; I'll defer to you on that, but we're not really naming anybody, and we'll see how that room looks by the time we get to August.”Said LaFleur, “I’ll piggyback off that. If you're going to ask me on tight end, I think there are certain positions that you feel really good about, and I feel really good about the quarterback position.

Why? Because both those guys have played a lot of football. Right now, none of that's even being discussed because all we're trying to do is get a foundational aspect of what this system looks like.“I keep telling the guys, ‘Yeah we have the foundational aspects of what we want it to look like, but we're going to fit it to the skillset of what these guys can do.’ We're not going to be the Rams, we're not going to be the Niners, we're not going to be the Packers, we're not going to be anyone but the Arizona Cardinals.

The best offenses I've been a part of have organically gotten to that point.”Get more Cardinals and NFL coverage from Cards Wire's Jess Root and others by listening to the latest on the Rise Up, See Red podcast. Subscribe on Spotify, YouTube or Apple podcasts.This article originally appeared on Cards Wire: 2026 NFL draft: Is Ty Simpson to the Arizona Cardinals simply hype?