Risers, Fallers & the Truth

Respectfully, and I mean that because you are definitely not a hot take artist. Respectfully, WHO had McCarthy as a 2nd Round Talent a few short months ago?

If it was you based on watching tape and evaluators fine. If it was because that's what you read that mockers had him ranked then I think you missed the entire purpose of this post.

Which is that the mockers got it wrong. It's that 'intangibles' thing that Uncle brought up. I went all tl:dr in a thread on the Draft section here about GMs trying to identify the 'It' factor and why I believe several GMs believe they see it in McCarthy.

He beat the most Top 20 Defenses in College last year. He had the highest percentage of throws in the NFL Window, which is over the middle of the field between 1 & 20 yards. He took the most snaps under Center. He was way up there in using Play Action. His Offensive Line had the best run blocker grade but also the worst pass blocking grade over any of the Top 6 guys.

Think about that. Drake Maye played behind better pass blockers. His Tackles in particular were really bad. But you watch that Alabama game and you see fast pressure from every position on the D-Line.

He had great running back, but they weren't pass catching threats. His Receivers dropped passes and ran the wrong routes. Roman Wilson will go on Day 2. The rest, if they even get drafted, will go on Day 3. No lethal weapons like Daniels, Penix or Nix had. Only Drake Maye had less to work with.

The Wolverines faced a lot of 2nd and 3rd and Long plays and McCarthy converted. Often by making the correct read in NFL Concepts.

His major issues are sample size and layering throws between levels of the Defense. Who else has a small sample size? Actually, all of them.....

Yes, even Caleb Williams. I define Sample Size as throwing in the NFL Window. Jayden Daniels threw 9 frigging percent of his passes over the middle. When Penix threw over the middle, which he also didn't do a ton, he had the worst EPA of the Top 6. Maye threw over the middle but was inconsistent. Nix was awesome at it. But with a small sample size.

JJ threw less passes. Like, a lot less passes. But when he did throw it was typically in the NFL Window. And he was successful at it. Despite the leaky Pass Pro. Despite the paucity of receiving threats. Successful enough to win it all. As a 20 year old. That's what GMs are watching. Not charting service breakdowns. The bigger picture. It won't surprise me wherever he goes, even #2.

I'm recalling a little bit of reading on him last fall that had 2nd round (or lower) grades, but you're right, Googling now using that time frame I can see some people touting him as a first rounder, even a high first rounder.

But I don't look at any of these qb's until after the Super Bowl, and I trust my own opinion first. That said, I'm not a professional scout and this is all just opinions until the guy steps on the field in an NFL uni.

All very interesting. I don't see elite processing which is my #1 criteria, or elite physical talent. I did like his brief on-field interview after the Alabama game, he made an impression character-wise even in that short bit.

We live in the hype era and I'm suspicious of hype, and the JJM noise is at max volume right now.   In his defense, Harbaugh was touting him just as strongly last fall as he is now so I don't think that's gamesmanship--Harbaugh is more of a wear-it-on-his-sleeve type imho.

I'd still prefer Penix because I think his game is the most NFL-ready, just needs some work in some areas but all of them do.   And he could be had at 11, allowing us to use the 23 to fill glaring needs pretty much all over the place.   But it doesn't seem Kwesi made a relatively bad trade with Houston, value-wise, to just sit at 23.  Frankly I'm wondering if the Wall Street genius will ever make a really good deal with anyone.  

The Vikings will do what they do regardless. Let's hope the Bears don't read your write-up, they might leave poor Caleb at the altar and shake up the draft.

Yeah I’ve been saying for over a month now Maye and McCarthy both fit the best for what Kevin wants to do and his scheme. I think both those guys the team would be happy about getting either. I’ve listened to several draft podcasts from draft nerds who study these guys tapes and some of ex gm’s on these qbs. They all agree that Maye and JJ are both good fits for Vikings. I do hear that Maye because of the higher ceiling is probably THE guy they prefer most in this class but will be happy with either.

In the week before the title game and even right after when the purple base was drinking Penix flavored kool aid I posted that the Vikings should take JJ and I literally had nobody agreeing and they said Penix was clearly better than JJ.

In the thread about 2024 QB prospects JJ wasn’t even mentioned for the first several pages and nobody had him as one of the top picks.

Obviously nobody knows exactly what each coach had for a grade on him but the whole media/fan base didn’t have him on the radar

This is great.  I remember this draft like it was yesterday.  I have family that are huge Bills fans and as actually at the stadium for the draft party and remember when their pick was read and it was "Josh..." everyone was cheering and happy and then "Allen" and it flipped to 'nooooo! come on!' because all the experts had convinced them that Rosen was the best pick for them and they were so pissed it wasn't him.  They drafted the wrong Josh.  

If I remember correctly, Allen wasn't known as a runner coming out of college either.  I think it developed as a survival instinct those first few years with the Bills.  I do think that's another similarity to Penix as he is not known as a runner but in some of his combine interviews I remember hearing him say that it wasn't something he did much because it wasn't needed.  Something along those lines, I'm sure I'm not quoting it exactly correct.  

The more I think about this, the more I'm hoping Penix is the pick.  JJ would need to end up being drastically better than Penix to justify trading up for him.  At minimum we could get Penix at 11 plus another likely starter at 23.  At best we could possibly trade back from 11, pick up another pick in Rd2 maybe, and end up with Penix, and two likely starters with those picks.  In a few years we'll be looking back and asking a 'would you rather have' JJ McCarthy or Penix plus likely starter or two that we would have also been able to draft.  Thats not even counting maybe losing next year's first Rd pick which is just dumb.  They need to be very sure that JJ is that much better than Penix to make the move and I find it hard to believe if JJ was that good Michigan would go entire halves of games without throwing a pass with a QB that talented.  

In fairness, wasn't McCarthy seen as 50-50 to enter this draft, maybe even more likely to stay at Michigan, untill the CFP? Then he got a great deal of attention, and both winning a NC and especially Harbaugh departing made him ready to go pro.

I don't mean this changed the estimation of NFL scouts, who are tracking key prospects whether they are coming out this year. But the public media attention had been focusing on 4 QBs with no eligility left plus Maye who was highly likely to declare for the draft. McCarthy seemed like next year's story.


Kind of like, "The Wrong Missy"? Underrated cheap movie...

I won't go to the point of claiming my analogies are that correct between 2018 and 2024. The most relevant comparison is probably just that there are a relatively large number of QBs in both drafts and the separation isn't clear. This isn't exactly "Matt Stafford and some also-rans" like some drafts. I wouldn't even be that shocked if Williams isn't #1: I read some of the things FSUVike writes about McCarthy and wonder why the Bears wouldn't want him. IIRC the Browns were uncertain about picking Mayfield #1 until fairly late in the process in 2018.

How does he look like Henne? I don't see anything that resembles him outside of the fact they both came out of Michigan.

And a "stronger armed" Alex Smith is a top 10 QB in the NFL, I would take that on a rookie contract. And I don't know if I buy that he is less athletic, McCarthy is very fast - he ran one of the fastest 3 cone times ever for a QB - 6.82 seconds. Which, now that I look up Alex Smith's RAS scores, dang, he also ran a 6.82 3 cone! Funny coincidence.


I do believe there is some smoke-screening going on - he's not going #2 overall - but he's not a borderline 1st-2nd round QB like he had him pegged back in January.

You think Williams, McCarthy, Maye, Nix, and Penix will all be out of the league in that 5-10 year stretch? That's a pretty bold prediction there.