Career college pass attempts: 713

---

Okay, I’m doing this out of order, but I just wanted to write about McCarthy before I get to the other guys, because to me, this is more of an interesting topic than other guys. So let’s get into it.

I’ve been one of the biggest McCarthy haters, full disclosure. I want to keep it real with you and reveal my biases at the start, so you know where I stand. However, I think once you read what I have to say, you’ll find that I was pretty fair to him despite my Hater Status™.

Maybe it’s because I’m an Ohio State fan: I just don’t like JJ McCarthy. I think he’s a zoomer broccoli head-ass punk. And I think he’s full of shit, too. 

That one throw he had against Ohio State that everyone jerks off over, the greatest throw in the history of football? They asked him about it after the game and he said he knew the DB wasn’t going to turn his head because he’d been studying film and knew that DB’s tendencies.

Only problem? That DB was a true freshman who had barely played at all that season up to that point. There was no way McCarthy could’ve studied enough film to know his tendencies–Malik Hartford was his name, by the way.

What really happened was JJ gambled–or he didn’t see the DB. Whatever it was, it worked out for him and now everyone thinks he’s the greatest QB prospect in history because of it.

But he definitely did not pick up on that from film study. Which means he’s a liar, and personally, I hate liars and have a very low opinion on them. I’m very interested in psychology and have my own little pet theories on a lot of things. One of them is that people who lie are generally quite stupid–in fact so stupid they don’t even realize they’re stupid.

Because to lie you have to be pretty dumb. It’s easy to sniff out a lie, there are tells; it’s easy for people to figure out you’re lying. Especially in a situation like this one. Yet you chose to lie anyway. Why?

It’s because people who lie think they’re smarter than everyone else, yet the reality is that simply by lying you have proven yourself to be an idiot, because you don’t realize how easy it is for people to sniff out lies. You think you have everybody fooled. Which means you’re so stupid that you don’t even realize you’re stupid.

In general, I think liars are unintelligent. And I think JJ McCarthy is a liar.

Look, I may have an inherent hate towards all things Michigan, but I’m reasonable about it. In fact, I think Little Mike Sanristil is one of the best DB prospects in the draft, and he’s a Michigan guy. I’ve got nothing against him, I actually hope my Bears are able to pick him up–or some team I like. I think he’ll be a great asset to whomever drafts him. Aidan Hutchinson, I hated him in college, but I like him in the NFL and actually root for him when I watch the Lions. I like the way he plays with his motor and energy.

I don’t just blindly hate all Michigan players, but I do hate McCarthy. I think he’s one of those punk ass kids that has all the parents fooled, and in this case the parents are the NFL media. And I hope the Vikings do in fact move up and draft him, because that’s one of the Bears’ division rivals, and I think it’ll be a disaster for them if they do it.

I’d be pissed if the Vikings or the Packers or the Lions draft Little Mike, but I would be ecstatic if one of those teams took McCarthy.

However, with all that said, I will admit, McCarthy was a 5-star QB and I have seen him make some impressive throws. I really like his mobility and running ability, he can throw on the run, and he’s crafty. 

But as far as being a pocket passer, I am not sold at all.

You can view McCarthy two ways: he is an unselfish leader who did what he was asked to do at the cost of his stats, or that he didn’t throw the ball a lot because they didn’t trust him to throw the ball a lot. I tend to think that if you have a great quarterback, you will unleash him and let him be great, not hide him away and turn him into a handoff merchant.

I obviously lean towards the latter.

If a quarterback isn’t prolific in college, how can you expect him to be prolific in the NFL?

That said, I think he has a higher upside than Bo Nix so I’m ranking McCarthy ahead of him. I think McCarthy definitely has a lower floor than Nix, though. I am not 100% convinced he’s an NFL quarterback. He could turn out to be a catastrophic failure. Like, yeah, you asked that girl to marry you after 2 dates–why are you surprised you’re getting divorced 18 months later?

Still, though, McCarthy remains the classic “blank slate” QB prospect, whose lack of any tangible resume actually works in his favor in the eyes of these NFL GMs, who fall in love with potential. They love to think about what could be, rather than what is–or what is likely to be.

It’s almost like the less of a track record a player has the better, because then these GMs can start letting their imaginations run wild.

JJ McCarthy is the mystery box prospect. A boat is a boat, but the mystery box could be anything—it could even be a boat!

People, in general, just love to roll the dice instead of taking the known quantity. We always think the grass is greener on the other side. Until we actually go see for ourselves.

One of the McCarthy narratives out there that annoys me: “He’s a winner.”

To me that’s one of the weakest endorsements you can give a quarterback. It’s true that McCarthy was 27-1 as a starter and won a national championship. No one can take that away. But AJ McCarron was also a tremendous winner as well. He won TWO Natties. Same with Stetson Bennett. Tim Tebow was a great winner as well. Jameis Winston was a winner.

Being a “winner” in college doesn’t necessarily translate to winning in the NFL. Sure, I’d rather have a winner than a loser as my quarterback, but is it even fair to deem guys as winners and losers based on team success? Patrick Mahomes, over his two seasons as a starter at Texas Tech, had a losing record, going 12-13.

If McCarthy is a winner because of his record in college, does that mean Mahomes was a loser in college? And even if he was, is Mahomes still a loser?

He’s not?

Well then, what changed?

Wait…. you can change?! Losers can become winners?

Then that means… winners can become losers too…?

Or maybe….

….There’s more that goes into being a “winner” than people like to admit, and that distilling guys down to “winners” and “losers” is a gross oversimplification, because it presumes that a given quarterback’s team won primarily because of him. Or vice versa.

In certain cases, you can buy into the “winner” narrative. I was high on Deshaun Watson after the 2016 CFB season even though he was considered behind Mitch Trubisky as a QB prospect. I just thought Watson was a winner (and that he had a better arm, was more athletic, and had way more experience).

The difference is that Deshaun Watson, if you just watched him play, had to do a lot more for his teams than McCarthy.

You can’t just be considered a winner because your team won a lot, because you could’ve just been along for the ride. If your team wins a lot because of you, that’s a different story. When DeShaun Watson was at Clemson, they were the best team in the country because he was the best quarterback in the country. McCarthy’s team was the best in the country in spite of the fact that he wasn’t the best quarterback in the country. Very big difference. Watson was indispensable, McCarthy much less so. 

For instance, I think Michigan still wins the Natty with Caleb Williams at QB, or Maye, Daniels, Penix, even Bo Nix as well. I don’t think McCarthy was indispensable.

So the “Winner” stuff doesn’t move the needle for me.

Another thing I didn’t like was how McCarthy came to the Combine apparently having put on 20 pounds, presumably in an effort to quiet all the “too skinny” talk. I think it’s safe to assume this is the reason he didn’t run the 40 yard dash, which is a shame because his running ability is probably his strongest trait.

Somehow, though, showing up to the combine with 20 extra pounds on his frame was enough to put all the questions about his size to bed, and his draft stock was cleared for takeoff. As if just last year we didn’t see Bryce Young weigh in at an absurd 205 pounds at the Combine, when everybody and their mother knew his real weight was 185 lbs soaking wet. They must have force-fed that poor kid double-steak Chipotle burritos three times a day.

The point is, whatever JJ McCarthy weighed in at the Combine, that isn’t his real weight. That’s Combine weight. Guarantee you he doesn’t keep it on.

However, my biggest concern about McCarthy is that he’s only had 713 career pass attempts in college.

Typically, that puts you in the danger zone as a QB prospect.

I went back to 1998 and looked at every QB that was drafted in the first round, as well as notable quarterbacks who were drafted in later rounds–like Dak Prescott, Russell Wilson, Brock Purdy, and of course Tom Brady.

What I found was that the 900 career college pass attempts mark was extremely important: the QB prospects who turned out to be the best NFL QBs, for the most part, had over 900 college pass attempts. When you get below the 900 mark, you start seeing more and more busts and less and less great QBs.

The bust ratio is higher the fewer college pass attempts you have in your career, and it’s lower the more you have.

Now, this isn’t to say that there are no busts in the 900+ range–quite the contrary. There are a lot of busts.

But there are also a lot more QBs that panned out above 900. Drafting quarterbacks is a crapshoot as it is, but what I was able to find is that you give yourself much better odds of finding a good one if you focus on the guys who have the most college experience.

For example, let me just list off some of the names that fell into the 900+ club: Philip Rivers (1710), Jared Goff (1569), Drew Brees (1525), Carson Palmer (1515), Russell Wilson (1489), Brock Purdy (1467), Peyton Manning (1381), Eli Manning (1363), Patrick Mahomes (1349), Matt Ryan (1347), Andy Dalton (1317), Big Ben (1304), Justin Herbert (1293), DeShaun Watson (1242), Dak Prescott (1169), Trevor Lawrence (1138), Kirk Cousins (1128), Jordan Love (1125), Lamar Jackson (1086), Andrew Luck (1064), Jalen Hurts (1047), Matthew Stafford (987), Joe Burrow (945), Joe Flacco (942), Donovan McNabb (938), Aaron Rodgers (930), Josh Allen (908). Then you have Tony Romo who just missed the cut at 892. 

(I didn’t include any quarterbacks older than Peyton Manning because if you go too far back, you’re talking about a completely different game than we have today. Throwing is so much more prevalent nowadays, and so the 900 mark is more of a modern benchmark. It’s not a standard we should hold guys from the 70s and 80s and even the 90s to, because they played in an era where passing was far less frequent and the game still revolved heavily around running the ball–especially at the college level. If you want to know what I mean, just watch some Nebraska games from the 1990s when they were in their heyday under Tom Osborne. You won’t even recognize the type of offense they ran back then–it’s like a service academy.)

That is a pretty comprehensive list of great quarterbacks, I’d say. Again, having over 900 college pass attempts in your career does not guarantee success, as there are tons of busts littered in there as well, but there are WAY more good and great quarterbacks in the 900+ category than in the sub-900 category.

In the sub-900 category, you’ve got CJ Stroud at 830, Ryan Tannehill at 774, Tua at 684, Tom Brady at 638, Cam Newton at 528, Kyler Murray at 519, and Michael Vick at 313. Those are the best names in the sub-900 category. And that’s where McCarthy falls with 713.

I know obviously with Tom Brady in that group, and Brady being from Michigan as well, it’s a big caveat. But still, Tom Brady defied the odds in so many different ways, I think it would be foolish to try and chase the “next Tom Brady”. And that’s assuming there even is a “next Tom Brady”.

The point I’m making here is, flat out, I think it’s foolish to draft a quarterback with under 900 career college pass attempts. The odds are simply not in your favor if you do.

Other than Tom Brady, probably the biggest exception to the rule in my view would be CJ Stroud, but he was at least pretty close at 830. Tua at 684 and Kyler at 519 are exceptions as well, but also, those are guys that a lot of people aren’t fully sold on, you know?

And then with Cam Newton and Michael Vick, I really don’t even care about how many college pass attempts those guys had since they were running quarterbacks anyway.

So, again, I would be hesitant to spend a first round pick on a quarterback that only has 713 college pass attempts. I’m not saying my research on quarterbacks is airtight or that you couldn’t come up with counter-arguments to using college pass attempts as a main determining factor, but the results are the results. Quarterbacks with more college experience tend to have more success in the NFL. It’s pretty overwhelming.

Now, McCarthy was a starter for two years and even got some tick as a true freshman, so he’s got some decent experience–and as I said earlier, he came in as a 5-star guy so he has tools. This is not some 5’11” scrappy underdog who was overlooked by all the big programs and clawed his way to where he is through sheer grit and determination. JJ McCarthy has pedigree.

And I think that’s the reason the NFL is seemingly so high on him: he was highly touted coming out of high school, and so the reason he didn’t put up the numbers at Michigan must have been simply that they didn’t unleash him or didn’t use him properly.

To that I would say, while I don’t deny that he has a lot of physical tools, we also shouldn’t put too much stock in those high school recruiting rankings, especially those from the Covid years, when McCarthy was recruited (2021 class). Those were probably the least accurate recruiting rankings ever just because players weren’t being seen as much. In person visits stopped and you had to rely more on tape and taking somebody’s word on a guy. It was “garbage in, garbage out” that year as far as the recruiting rankings’ inputs and outputs. Kyle McCord was a 5-star guy in 2021.

Again, I’m not saying McCarthy shouldn’t have been a 5-star (McCord probably shouldn’t have, though), but I am saying maybe don’t put so much stock into his 5-star pedigree.

I just don’t see any reason these NFL guys seem to believe that McCarthy was vastly under-utilized at Michigan–other than the fact that they know McCarthy was a 5-star recruit coming out of high school.

Mike Tannenbaum, former Jets GM now at ESPN, said that McCarthy would have put up Jayden Daniels-like numbers at LSU, and Daniels’ numbers would have looked like McCarthy’s if he was at Michigan.

For one thing, it’s easy to see why Tannenbaum is no longer an NFL GM and instead spouts off hot takes on TV.

The second thing is, based on what? 

When has McCarthy ever demonstrated that he is capable of doing the same things as Jayden Daniels? Is McCarthy faster and more athletic than Daniels? No, definitely not. Does he have a better arm? I don’t think so.

Where does this nonsense come from? I think it comes from the 5-star rating McCarthy had, I really do. He just didn’t show anywhere near enough on tape to warrant the hype, and so I think these NFL guys are just going off the high school ranking and assuming he’s got a ton of untapped potential. I mean, in fairness, while there’s not a lot of evidence McCarthy is good, there’s also not a lot of evidence he sucks, either.

So maybe the NFL guys are just going off of that–there’s no sufficient proof to say he’s bad, and he was highly-touted coming out of high school, so this means he’s probably actually good, and was just misused in college.

If I had to guess at the thought process of an NFL scout who is high on McCarthy, that would be my guess.

But in my opinion, the more interesting question is, why does nobody ask why Michigan had such a run-heavy offense where McCarthy was more or less a steward?

People talk about how Michigan “didn’t have to throw the ball” because they just ran all over everybody.

Really? Did they? Maybe in their first 8 games, which were total jokes.

But their last few games were not cupcakes. The Maryland, Penn State, and Ohio State games were all nail-biters, and Michigan was not dominant on the ground. Nor were they just running all over Iowa in the Big Ten title game, either–they beat Iowa with defense and special teams, period.

“But they didn’t have to run the whole second half against Penn State!”

Yeah, that’s true, they chose not to throw the ball for pretty much that whole second half. But their second half drives in that game–where they “didn’t even have to pass”–looked like this: field goal off a Penn State fumble, punt, punt, punt, touchdown off a Penn State turnover at their own 30, end of game. 

Prior to that dagger touchdown–which again was a result of Penn State failing a 4th down conversion at their own 30–Michigan’s previous four drives had produced 25 plays, 87 yards and just a field goal. That’s 3.48 yards per play. That does not seem to me like just pure domination on the ground. That looks like a team that is terrified to throw the ball and is just trying to run out the clock and trust their defense. The game was 17-9 for most of the second half–a one-possession game, and yet Michigan still just sat on the ball and didn’t even try to go to the air.

So don’t tell me they “didn’t need to throw.”

If you’re up 42-7 in the third quarter, then that’s when you “don’t need to throw.”

But up 17-9 against a top-10 opponent on the road? Don’t give me that bullshit.

The National Championship against Washington, where McCarthy only completed 10 passes: that was not because “they didn’t even need to throw the ball.” That was a one-score game well into the fourth quarter that neither team could take command of, until Michigan finally broke through with a TD to make it 27-13 around the 7 minute mark. They then tacked on another to make it 34-13, off a Washington pick that got run all the way back to the Washington 8 yard line.

That game was hanging in the balance, Michigan up just 20-13, and they were punting the ball left and right because they were unable to move the ball for a long stretch.

If ever there was a time to let it rip with JJ McCarthy, and let him take the reins, it would be in the 4th quarter of the National Championship with the game hanging in the balance. I mean, for fuck’s sake.

I’m just saying, they were not winning these games 45-0 where they could just run the ball and bleed the clock. These were close games, and they were not having a ton of success on the ground to the point where throwing the ball was unnecessary. They were gashing Washington on the ground in the first half of the game, sure, but in spite of that, the score at halftime was just 17-10.

So don’t give me this revisionist history where Michigan was so dominant that they didn’t even have to throw the ball. It’s the most Michigan thing ever–everything always has to be embellished. Michigan people are not satisfied with winning a National Title, they have to go even further: it was easy to win the Natty. That’s how amazing and dominant they were. They won a Natty without throwing the ball. And JJ McCarthy is so good that he will be an elite NFL QB even though he didn’t throw the ball in college.

It’s pure Fan Glasses.

Anyway.

McCarthy has talent, but they didn’t trust him to throw the ball. The one game they had no choice but to throw it, the TCU game in the playoff, what did he do? Two pick-sixes. He had some nice throws, and finished the game with decent numbers, but you can’t overlook two pick-sixes, nor can you overlook some of the other bad balls he threw. Plus, Stetson Bennett went up against that same TCU defense the following week in the Natty and went 18/25 for 304 and 4 TDs–plus 2 TDs and 39 yards on the ground. And that was in 3 quarters of work.

Now that is what you call not having to throw the ball.

Look, I’ve seen a lot of JJ McCarthy over the past few years, and yes, there have been some good plays he’s made that I have to tip my cap on. But most of those were with his legs. We do not have a real sample size of McCarthy dicing people up from the pocket. Michigan, when they did throw the ball, did a lot of “trickery” and stuff that would never fly in the NFL. It felt like so much of their passing game was built off the run–play action, designed rollouts, stuff like that. When they called pass plays, they were mostly super low-risk where they would scheme a guy open and give McCarthy an easy completion.

Honestly it felt like if he didn’t have a man wide open he was in trouble. Which is not to say he’s bad off-script, in fact he’s pretty good off-script and when the play breaks down. It’s probably when he’s at his best–just as long as somebody is open. He can escape and find the open man if the play breaks down, and he can even throw it on the run.

But that’s not what I’m talking about. There is a very big “in-between” there, and McCarthy has not shown anywhere near enough in this category. He’s pretty good when they scheme somebody open for him, and he’s good when the whole play breaks down and it turns into backyard football. Great.

But what about everything else?

I need to know a guy can drop back 40-50 times a game and pick the defense apart from the pocket. I’ve not seen evidence McCarthy can do that. Williams, as critical as I was about his ability to be a pocket passer, has way, way more tape doing that than McCarthy does.

JJ is very good at completing passes to his first read off of play action–I’m talking about the designed stuff. Catch the ball in the shotgun, fake the handoff, pull it and throw to the tight end. He did that so many times, and he was usually able to deliver crisp, accurate passes in those instances. If it’s “One, two, throw” then he can do that for you.

But you do not see the guy doing a whole lot from the pocket–traditional quarterbacking. I said this in the Caleb Wililams post and I’ll say it again: you will not make it in the NFL if your game revolves around escaping and improvising and scrambling. You will get exposed if you cannot sit back in the pocket, diagnose the defense, find the open man, and deliver a strike. That’s like 80% of the job.

I’m talking: sit there in the pocket, feel the rush around you while scanning through your reads, then step up in the pocket and deliver a strike. I’m talking about plays where you don’t already know exactly where you’re throwing the ball–where it’s up to the quarterback to read the field and find the open man. This requires you to think on the fly, and you have to make the right decision. It’s not already been made for you.

McCarthy is good in situations where the decision has been made for him by his play-caller. But in situations where it’s all on him, I wouldn’t trust him.

I also wouldn’t trust him in a situation where the defense isn’t keying on the run–which is what opposing defenses were doing most of the time when they played Michigan.

And that’s another thing a lot of these purported McCarthy advocates aren’t addressing: okay, let’s grant your point that McCarthy was simply running the offense the way his coaches wanted, and it’s not McCarthy’s fault he was part of a heavily running-oriented offensive attack.

What does that say about the type of defensive looks he was facing?

How often was JJ McCarthy the focal point for the opposing defense? Other than containing his running ability, probably not a whole lot. So you have to view what he did in college throwing the ball through this lens as well–the context to just about every throw he’s ever attempted is that the defense was primarily concerned with the run, and McCarthy was a beneficiary of that.

Basically every game McCarthy played was against a defense that was far more concerned with stopping the run than stopping the pass. I’m not saying McCarthy’s arm wasn’t a threat at all, because that’s untrue. I’m saying that opposing defenses were way more worried about Corum and Edwards, and McCarthy as a runner, than they were about his arm.

In the NFL, it’ll be the exact opposite. He’s not catching anybody snoozing. He is going to have to throw the ball in the NFL, a lot, and the defenses will be expecting it. He’s not used to that. Again, there is no quarterback for whom the NFL will be a bigger culture shock than McCarthy. None of the other quarterbacks will have to make as big an adjustment as McCarthy will.

I really cannot believe more people aren’t bringing this point up about him. It’s astonishing to me that people are under the impression that how run-oriented Michigan’s offense was cannot be held against McCarthy in any way, or that it tells us nothing either way about McCarthy’s pro potential. 

They never ask why Michigan didn’t let him throw the ball, nor do they ever ask how much easier it made McCarthy’s job that every defense he faced was focused on stopping the run rather than the pass. This is an incredibly big deal–he’s not going to be facing stacked boxes every play in the NFL.

I’ve also seen far too many plays of his where he simply does not have good ball placement. Often he will throw the ball to where the receiver was, not where the receiver is going to be. He’s not great at leading the receiver, and this is a skill that’s critically important in the NFL. You have to be able to throw with anticipation, and in the few moments where McCarthy has been asked to do that, in my estimation he cannot do it consistently. He’ll throw it behind his guy and see it easily batted down by a DB.

And that leads me to another thing: people act like McCarthy is just this big question mark; we don’t know anything about him really other than that he has a load of potential but we don’t know one way or another!

“There’s not a lot of good tape on him–but there’s also no bad tape!”

No, there is bad tape. It’s out there. The TCU game from 2022 is exhibit A. And I thought he had some bad throws against Washington as well.

Yes, McCarthy is agile, elusive and has good speed. And he can throw pretty well on the run. He makes some throws where I’m like, “Okay, I can kinda see it with that.” 

But we just do not have any evidence he can get it done from the pocket. He was not a pocket quarterback in college, and to me that’s a real and major concern.

And you cannot just dismiss his lack of pass reps by saying “Well, they didn’t need him to throw.” Or “He did what he was told to do.”

That’s not good enough. That’s not a sufficient argument.

There has to be proof that he’s good–not just a lack of evidence that he isn’t good.

Those are not the same things.

In my view, Michigan didn’t let him throw because they didn’t trust him to throw.

Does it make any fucking sense that you have this supposedly generational, unbelievable quarterback with a once-in-a-decade arm and you don’t let him throw–by choice?

You think any coach in America is only letting Caleb Williams throw it just 8 times in a game? You think any coach in America is telling Maye or Daniels or Penix to just hand the ball off all game and occasionally throw it out of play action to catch the defense napping?

Of course not. They’d let it rip.

If you have a superstar quarterback, you unleash him. You let him be great. You use that to your advantage.

You don’t just voluntarily fight with one arm tied behind your back. That’s insane.

And you can’t just say, “Well that’s Jim Harbaugh’s system.”

Jim Harbaugh coached Andrew Luck for two seasons. You think Jimmy treated Andrew Luck the same way he treated McCarthy? No, he didn’t. He let Luck throw the ball. In 2010, Harbaugh’s last year at Stanford, Luck averaged 28.6 pass attempts a game. He even averaged 24 a game as a redshirt freshman in 2009.

This past season, McCarthy averaged 22 pass attempts a game. Last year it was 23. So even in Luck’s redshirt freshman season with Harbaugh, he still averaged more pass attempts a game than in any of McCarthy’s years under Harbaugh.

And Luck’s pass attempts went up every year, not down like McCarthy’s did. They let McCarthy throw it even less this year than they did in 2022. Luck, on the other hand, went from 24 to 28.6 to eventually 31 in 2011 when David Shaw took over as head coach. In 2010, with Harbaugh still there, Luck threw it 46 times in the game against Oregon, and 41 times in a game against Arizona State. McCarthy’s college career high in pass attempts is 37.

In the NFL, quarterbacks in the top half of the league average at least 500 pass attempts a season, which divided by 17 comes out to 29.4. Top QBs average closer to 600 pass attempts in a season, which comes out to about 35.3 a game. And that’s against NFL defenses.

JJ McCarthy played 40 college games and only twice did he ever hit 35 or more pass attempts.

It’s a completely different game in the NFL, and in my opinion, there’s no quarterback who is less prepared to make that leap that than JJ McCarthy. There is no quarterback in this draft class for whom it would be a bigger culture shock to be asked to throw the ball 30-35 times a game than him.

We’re really just going to ignore that and act like it’s all good? I can’t.

There is no way I’d feel comfortable drafting McCarthy in the first round. I am not saying he’s a guaranteed bust; I’m saying there’s simply not anywhere near enough evidence to support drafting him in the first round.

I also don’t think he’ll be nearly as strong a runner in the NFL as he was in college, but that’s kind of a given. He’s quite fast for a white boy, but he’s not that fast. I mean, I saw Trevor Lawrence house a 67 yard run in the playoff against Ohio State. McCarthy doesn’t do that kind of stuff. He’s not that fast.

But, again, it seems like the NFL is determined to pump his draft stock to the moon. We know how the NFL draft works: these GMs and evaluators become enamored with potential.

Honestly, I don’t think the NFL really cares about college production. I think they care more about the stuff I just listed above–how good do you look at the combine, or throwing against AIR at your pro day? The actual games don’t really matter to a lot of NFL scouts. I’m convinced of it, and this McCarthy hypefest is further proof.

But the NFL also made TREY LANCE the third overall pick in the draft, remember. Trey Lance had one real season of college football and went to the NFL after his junior year–a year where he opted out all but one game due to Covid. He played one full season, his sophomore year. That’s it. And he still went #3 overall because the NFL fell in love with his “potential.”

And it was not just the 49ers being dumb and taking him there–somebody else would’ve spent a very high pick on him if it wasn’t the Niners. They traded up for him, remember. They were afraid they wouldn’t be able to get him at 12 where they originally were.

The NFL does incredibly stupid shit like this in the draft all the time. A guy has good size, good athleticism, he throws the ball well against air in shorts and a t-shirt–the NFL falls head over heels for him. Doesn’t matter what he did in college. Same thing happened with Zach Wilson, too.

Remember how people were practically jerking off over Zach Wilson’s pro day? How amazing he looked throwing against AIR? Oh wow, he threw it on the move across his body downfield. Holy shit!

We all remember the Famous Zach Wilson Pro Day Throw. ESPN replayed it like 800 times.

I don’t care about that stuff. I care about the game tape. The stuff that happens after the season, to me, is like 10-15% of the evaluation. 85-90% of the evaluation happens in-season.

Yet nowadays it feels like that’s flipped on its head–at least when They™ want it that way. It seems like there are some quarterbacks that the Draft Industrial Complex is just determined to pump and promote at all costs, and will cling to whatever they can to boost that agenda.

McCarthy is one of those Agenda Guys, for some reason. I’m not sure what’s going on behind the scenes, or how much collusion goes on between NFL teams and the media, but clearly we are at a point right now where every concern about JJ McCarthy is either quickly dismissed or ignored entirely, while any positive traits–or even potential positive traits–are played-up and gushed over to an outright ridiculous extent.

The more I think about it, the more it all feels manufactured. Like somebody with a lot of pull in the NFL media is really trying to trick somebody into trading up and wildly overpaying for JJ McCarthy. And it seems like the Minnesota Vikings might be that team taking the bait here. As a Bears fan, I’d love to see it.

I am always going to be skeptical of these quarterbacks that shoot up the draft boards in the month or two prior to draft day.

I’ve made a helpful chart to illustrate my point:

Flying under the radar, flying under the radar–then BAM, March comes around and this guy’s draft stock goes full Nvidia.

McCarthy’s draft stock is probably just as rigged and manipulated as Nvidia’s real life stock.

Usually, with the great QBs, it’s either obvious to everyone for years, or nobody sees it coming. Peyton Manning, it was obvious for years. Tom Brady, nobody saw him coming at all. Drew Brees was a second rounder, everybody slept on him because of his height. Eli Manning, everybody saw that.

It’s rarely these late meteoric risers that turn into elite pros, right?

Baker Mayfield was a late meteoric riser. Remember how Sam Darnold was supposed to be the boy wonder in 2018? After that 2016 Rose Bowl against Penn State the talk was all “He would be the top pick in the draft right now if he could declare!” Sam Darnold was anointed for almost two years and then Baker Mayfield overtook him very late in the process.

I remember all the way up until Draft Day 2018, it was unclear who the Browns were taking. And then, like an hour before the draft, somebody or other gets on TV and says yeah so it’s looking like the Browns are closing in on Baker Mayfield, they’ve really fallen in love with him. And it was like, Huh??!? BAKER MAYFIELD???

He was a late riser, if you remember.

Will Levis was also a late meteoric riser–at least we were told he was. That turned out to be a complete fugazi. Do you remember when a reddit rumor just days before the draft caused Will Levis’ odds to be the #1 pick to skyrocket? Levis then became the odd-son betting favorite to be taken #2 overall. He ended up going in the second round.

Trey Lance was another one of those late meteoric risers, where it’s like “Wait, how the heck did this guy end up in the top 3 overall?”

Patrick Mahomes? Caught everybody but the Chiefs by surprise. And apparently the Saints, who were going to take him if KC didn’t jump them.

Aaron Rodgers famously slid down the draft board in humiliating fashion after expecting to go #1 overall to the Niners. The Packers finally saved him at 24. He was overlooked by 75% of the league.

I’m telling you, be skeptical of these guys that just fly up the draft boards in the months leading up to the draft. These guys are known quantities, they all went to big time schools.

All the sudden we act like this is the first anybody has ever heard of JJ McCarthy?

When a quarterback is great, it’s pretty obvious and you can see them coming. OR, there’s a guy who is overlooked by almost everyone and surprises us.

It’s usually not these guys who suddenly become hot commodities in March and April.

Just a month ago the idea of JJ McCarthy going inside the top half of the first round was a long shot, now he’s being discussed as potentially the SECOND OVERALL PICK. What?!

This is smokescreen. This is draft gamesmanship, and usually all of the smoke comes from the NFL Network guys, it seems. They always seem to be the ones who are rolling out all these new narratives. I don’t know all their names other than Daniel Jeremiah, who strikes me as very weasely, and the ringleader of it all.

It’s like you wake up in the morning and suddenly everyone is peddling the same narrative. Like a fucking memo went out: “New draft narrative just dropped, folks. Start pushing it.”

Like, what the fuck? I wake up and Marvin Harrison Jr. sucks now? JJ McCarthy is the best quarterback in the draft? When the fuck did this happen?

But yet there’s Daniel Jeremiah, on TV, talking about it so matter-of-factly you’d think it had been the conventional wisdom for the past six months. The sky is blue, McCarthy is the second best quarterback in the draft. Ho hum, move along, folks.

Then you’ll see somebody come out with a new mock draft somewhere reflecting the New Coordinated Consensus. Feels very 1984-ish, like when all the banners suddenly change, and in the blink of an eye, they’re no longer at war with Eurasia, they’re at war with Eastasia. And Eurasia, previously the hated enemy–they’re now an ally! In fact, it’s always been that way.

Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.

JJ McCarthy has always been a top-5 quarterback prospect.

Malik Nabers has always been a better wide receiver than Marvin Harrison Jr.

This whole dog and pony show–which, again, I get the sense is mostly peddled by the Daniel Jeremiah NFL Network crew–is all designed to create new consensus–replace old narratives with new narratives. It’s almost like brainwashing, in a way–try to make people forget that Marvin Harrison Jr. was ever the top receiver prospect in this draft, and that Malik Nabers has always been the top receiver prospect, so that maybe some team drafting up high actually believes it and passes on Marvin Harrison Jr., allowing him to slide to us.

I truly believe this is all gamesmanship and subliminal warfare or whatever you want to call it. I believe the proper term is “information warfare.” Obfuscation, lies, deceit, misinformation, red herrings designed to lead rivals astray.

There are teams out there that want some sucker to move up and draft JJ McCarthy. You’ve got Jim Harbaugh, his college coach, calling him the best QB in the draft. Maybe he actually believes it, or maybe he wants somebody to come up to 4 and draft McCarthy so the draft order goes QB QB QB QB and then voila, the Chargers at 5 are free to take Marvin Harrison Jr. Because as it stands right now it looks like, barring a trade, it’ll be the Cardinals taking Marvin Harrison at 4.

Or maybe it’s just that Harbaugh sees the draft going Williams, Maye, Daniels, then Marvin Harrison Jr. at 4, and Harbaugh and the Chargers want to trade down, which means they need somebody to covet the fuck out of the #5 pick the Chargers have. So what better way to do that than to pump up JJ McCarthy’s draft stock to outlandish levels, thus enticing some gullible team to trade all the way up to #5 because they are desperate to draft McCarthy and don’t want to risk not getting him.

That’s my theory here. The Chargers may be the ones pumping McCarthy to entice teams to trade for the 5th pick. Funny enough, the NFL Network studios are actually based in Los Angeles, just like the Chargers. In fact, they’re actually based in the building right next to SoFi Stadium–in the exact same mixed-use complex. And Daniel Jeremiah? According to his Wikipedia, he is the radio color commentator for the Los Angeles Chargers, a job he took in 2018 which he described as a “dream come true.”

I don’t know. Maybe it’s something, maybe it’s just me being paranoid.

But still: McCarthy has not done near enough in college to warrant a first round grade, and yet here we are talking about him potentially going top 5, potentially even second overall.

He’s a ball of clay–potential, but a project. He’s got athleticism and some speed, he throws a crisp ball at times. But he needs to be developed a lot. All teams think they can develop quarterbacks, but few actually can. He’s going to have to go to a team that can sit him a year and develop him. Unfortunately, you rarely enjoy that luxury when you draft in the top-10.

Again, I am not saying McCarthy will be a bust. I’ll never make definitive pronouncements like that. I always leave myself open to the possibility that I’m wrong. You’re an idiot not to.

But I am saying that genuinely holding the idea of McCarthy as a high first round pick is based on little more than hope.

And hope is not a strategy.