Jumbo Package: Alabama Basketball lands highly regarded center Drew Fielder in the Transfer Portal

In previous eras, the decision was straightforward. Coaches played the quarterback who gave them the best chance to win, which often meant leaning on experience. Veterans understood the system, had game reps and could handle pressure situations more consistently.

That logic still applies, but it is no longer the only factor. With the rise of the transfer portal and NIL, playing time has become just as important as performance in roster management. If a highly touted young player does not see the field, there is a real possibility he will leave for another opportunity.

Paul Finebaum highlighted that dilemma on “The Paul Finebaum Show,” pointing directly to Alabama’s current quarterback situation.

“If you go with the veteran, Austin Mack, who has been a part of the (Kalen) DeBoer system with (Ryan) Grubb, and you do run a risk of really losing your other player,” Finebaum said.

That puts Alabama in a difficult position between Austin Mack and Keelon Russell. To the shock of no one, I actually think Pawwll is being a little dramatic here. This dilemma has ALWAYS been the case with the QB position, even before the Portal Chaos Era. If a guy didn’t win a job, there’s always been a good shot he’d transfer, solely because of the nature of the QB position. You get four seasons to show you can make it to the NFL. And as a QB, you never get to rotate in. You either start, or you never play. If a veteran wins a job, a younger player will often still stay. That could still happen, but in this case, Russell and Mack are close enough in age that Russell could look at Mack still having two years of eligibility and go ahead and leave for somewhere so that his entire career isn’t hinging on one final season. And Mack will almost assuredly transfer if he loses. So yeah, either way, the coaches are managing the risk. I just don’t think that’s anything new or noteworthy. “The longer you watch him, you feel a little, man,” an AFC executive told Pelissero. “What’s he going to look like in our league? History’s betting against us here. He gets thrown around. The kid’s not very big, he’s not very gifted. When he gets sacked, it looks like your dog swinging around their squeaky toy.”

After falling to Florida State in the season opener during his first career start, Simpson showed exponential growth over the next couple of months. He was being perceived as a Heisman Trophy candidate, but in the final handful of games, including the postseason, he struggled.

In the first 11 games, Simpson averaged 266.7 passing yards and 2.0 touchdowns on 66.9 completion percentage. In the final four games, including the Rose Bowl where he exited early in the third quarter due to a rib injury, he averaged 158.3 passing yards and 1.5 touchdowns on 57.1 completion percentage.

Pelissero revealed on Feb. 23, the first day of the NFL Combine, that Simpson was “dealing with a severe case of gastritis toward the tail end of the season. He was weighing in the 190s by the time they got to the Rose Bowl.”

Simpson was back up to about 211 pounds at the NFL Combine, but even when he reached this weight, another AFC executive told Pelissero, “When he walked in our room, he looked like one of the ball boys.”

An NFC executive had something similar to say.

“They’ve tried to get him to 210, and I think he’s really struggled to get there. I think he played in the low 200s and then he got the crap beat out of him in that offense. All the dropback and struggling to run the ball. But early on, he was really decisive, he’s accurate, he can throw on time, he processed quickly – all those things were really, really encouraging, and then he just fell apart physically.” This one is weird to me. There are a lot of very legitimate criticism of Simpson’s game and reasons to doubt his NFL potential. Calling him small and looking “like a ball boy” just seems off. He’s a pretty average sized QB, profiling in very similar to Matt Stafford, Kirk Cousins, Lamar Jackson, Baker Mayfield, and Brock Purdy. The last time the Alabama Crimson Tide had no player selected in the first round of an NFL Draft was 2008. Coming off Nick Saban’s first season in Tuscaloosa, the Alabama roster was so weakened that not a single Alabama player was drafted. That had happened only once since 1961. No Alabama players were drafted in 1970.

The Alabama Crimson Tide record for NFL Draft selections in a single season is 12 in the 2018 Draft. That record is not expected to be matched in this week’s 2026 NFL Draft. Based on mock drafts, the Crimson Tide should have eight to ten players selected.

This Thursday, with one or two first -round selections, Alabama will fall far short of its record of six, set in the 2021 Draft. If Simpson slips and only Kadyn Proctor is a first-round pick, pundits will harp on it as another sign of an Alabama football decline. We’ll have plenty more NFL draft coverage for you all week this week here at RBR, but I do think it’s important to point out where the Tide is at as a program right now. Kadyn Proctor has a good chance of being the Tide’s only first round pick, and I wouldn’t even consider him a lock. Alabama dealt with a massive amount of turnover following Nick Saban’s retirement, and this is the fallout from that. The Tide only had a handful of seniors (most of whom were veteran transfers in to fill in depth roles), and only a couple of juniors that chose to return for their senior seasons. It’s just a really, really young roster that is taking a couple of seasons to rebuild. Now, will it rebuild into a star-studded class in the next two seasons? That remains to be seen. But at the very least I think it’s useful to think about in terms of overall roster strength and on-field results lining up the last two seasons.