The 2024 NFL Draft class contains one of the deepest crops of quarterbacks ever, but it’s the fourth-rated quarterback on most people’s draft boards in J.J. McCarthy who is drawing the most attention.
McCarthy has become the most polarizing player in this year’s draft class, but the University of Michigan star is expected to go somewhere in the top five.
Earlier this offseason, McCarthy was viewed by many as a mid-to-late first-round pick, and some questioned if he was a first-round talent at all.
But now, there is talk that the Michigan product could even go as high as No. 3 to the New England Patriots.
ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. says he wouldn’t be surprised if McCarthy does, in fact, fly off the board in the top five picks, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he is one of the top five players in the draft.
Kiper notes that he has McCarthy ranked 15th and says that NFL Network’s Daniel Jeremiah has him 20th.
He adds that we need to be careful about ranking quarterbacks higher than they should for the simple fact that they are quarterbacks.
McCarthy is coming off of a 2023 campaign in which he led the Wolverines to a national championship, throwing for 2,991 yards, 22 touchdowns and four interceptions while completing 72.3 percent of his passes. He also rushed for 202 yards and three scores.
USC’s Caleb Williams, LSU’s Jayden Daniels and North Carolina’s Drake Maye are considered by most to be the top three quarterback prospects in this year’s class, and most have McCarthy ranked fourth.
But many feel that the difference between the top three and McCarthy is staggering.
While some swear by McCarthy’s intangibles, others are worried about his physical limitations and think he was a product of Jim Harbaugh’s run-heavy offense at Michigan. In other words, McCarthy wasn’t asked to do very much, as evidenced by the fact that he didn’t even hit 3,000 passing yards on the year.
There are plenty of teams that need a signal-caller, so some team will probably take J.J. McCarthy in the top 10, at the very least. Would it be a case of overdrafting? Maybe, but whether or not Kiper thinks it’s appropriate, clubs will always value quarterbacks more highly than other positions.
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