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J.J. McCarthy to the Commanders is an unhinged draft rumor.
As we hurtle towards the 2024 NFL Draft there are going to be dozens of rumors and reports about which way teams are leaning. While some of these will end up being true, a great many of them are seeded with the intent of sowing doubt and creating chaos.
This is commonly referred to as “smokescreen,” and reports this week that J.J. McCarthy is being targeted by the Washington Commanders at No. 2 is the most impressive smokescreen of the season, because it makes absolutely no sense.
What’s the deal with J.J. McCarthy?
At this point McCarthy is the great unknown of the NFL Draft and that’s become a breeding ground for the imagination. His National Championship win with Michigan, and stellar completion numbers can be read as an indicator of future success. Conversely, his lack of actual reps, or convincing film could foreshadow a bust in the making.
McCarthy’s agents have done a phenomenal job in the pre-draft process accentuating the positives to his game and building hype around their client. It’s caused him to steadily rise in mock drafts from being a mid-20s prospect, to the Top 10, and now the Top 5. It’s widely believed that not only will McCarthy be taken early, but he could be the target of a team like Minnesota or Denver trading up to make him their QB of the future.
The issue isn’t whether McCarthy is good or bad, but rather the phenomenal risk he represents. While we’ve seen teams roll the dice in the Top 10 in the past (notably with Josh Allen and Anthony Richardson), these players had unicorn traits that made their upside worth the risk. When it comes to McCarthy there’s simply nothing that special about him. He benefited from a run-first offense that didn’t ask him to do much, and while his accuracy numbers are impressive, the tape doesn’t back up him being elite. McCarthy’s ball placement was questionable, didn’t put his receivers in position to maximize YAC, and it’s fair to wonder if he’s not just a slightly-more athletic Mac Jones.
Nobody would spend a top-3 pick on that.
The fit in Washington doesn’t make sense
The Commanders really tipped their hand and what they want in a quarterback with the hiring of Kliff Kingsbury as offensive coordinator. They’re going to be installing an Air Raid offense, which puts much more emphasis on the quarterback to make decisions pre-and-post snap, rather than requiring someone who can execute on a clearly designed play, with little room for improvisation.
To this end we have two quarterbacks at the top of the draft who are best-suited to run the Air Raid in Caleb Williams and Jayden Daniels, and two who are better suited to run other traditional offensive schemes in Drake Maye and J.J. McCarthy.
So, if we read the tea leaves here you’re essentially having the Commanders take the worse of the two quarterbacks who don’t fit their system, and have them make that pick at No. 2. It just doesn’t fit.
Who stands to gain from the McCarthy to Washington rumors?
If we look at teams who are in dire need of taking a quarterback in the draft, but don’t control their ability to get one, we land on the Vikings are Raiders. Of these two it’s Minnesota who have a clearer objective.
I believe the Vikings want Drake Maye. The fit there is too good. Maye is the perfect quarterback to run Kevin O’Connell’s offense, and there’s already organizational familiarity with QB coach Josh McCown being Maye’s high school coach.
If the Vikings can help create mystique around McCarthy and have him go before Maye, now they benefit in a potential trade up. The ideal scenario for them would be to have Williams, Daniels and McCarthy be the first three QBs off the board, leaving out Maye — at which point they could trade up to No. 5 with the Chargers (the most likely trade partner) and get their QB of the future.
This would come at the expense of either the Patriots, or a team trading up with New England to land McCarthy — like the Raiders. I’m not convinced New England is enamored with any of the QBs they can take at No. 3 to the point they wouldn’t move back, fill other needs, and try to find an alternate path to fill their QB position.
This doesn’t mean there’s no legitimate interest in McCarthy
Even though this idea of McCarthy at No. 2 to Washington makes no sense, that doesn’t mean teams don’t still love the potential of him. A lot of teams around the NFL will view McCarthy as a winner with intangibles, whose lack of passing reps is a boon, because they’ll get to mold him in their system, rather than getting a guy who needs to un-learn habits.
McCarthy is a plus-level athlete, albeit not an elite one — and to this end he’s certainly better than a lot of players we’ve seen enter the draft at QB in prior years. In the right organization he can absolutely find success, and teams will believe they’re the ones who can unlock this.
That still doesn’t mean he’s better than Williams, Maye or Daniels at the top of. the class — but someone out there is trying.
