The New York Giants made the surprising move to trade with the Minnesota Vikings for quarterback J.J. McCarthy on Monday morning.
We fully expected the Giants to make a move for a quarterback in the aftermath of Jaxson Dart’s season-ending knee injury. However, trading a fifth-round pick for the 10th overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft came as a surprise.
We decided that this was an excellent time to see what the Big Blue View staff thinks of the move.
Nick Falato
I understand why the Giants made this move. Yes,
J.J. McCarthy was bad in Minnesota, and taking on his contract puts some pressure on the Giants’ cap. The fifth-round pick they gave up is valuable. Still, I understand why New York was willing to trade a fifth-rounder for a 23-year-old quarterback who was selected 10th overall just two drafts ago and spent his entire rookie season injured.
Jameis Winston hasn’t looked particularly good through two games, and the Giants want a mobile quarterback who can operate in this Nagy/Roman-designed, heavy-personnel offense. It’s a similar offensive structure to the one McCarthy led at Michigan under Jim Harbaugh, where he won a National Championship. That Harbaugh connection is significant, particularly when it comes to McCarthy’s familiarity with the system and the way he was developed. It also helps alleviate some of the concerns surrounding his character.
At the end of the day, the Giants bought an asset at a low point while adding another dimension to the quarterback room of a 2-1 team. McCarthy offers something different from Winston, and if he finds some success this season, the possibility of trading him for more value is always on the table.
More than anything, the move gives the Giants options. New York has already added two Day 3 picks through the Josh Ezeudu and Daniel Faalele trades earlier this offseason, and the team could potentially recoup a fourth-rounder through the compensatory-pick formula with Austin Schlottmann in Tennessee. However, as things stand, the Giants currently do not have a fourth- or fifth-round pick.
Jeremy Brener
The Giants are doing something. That’s all people can ask for at this point. Jameis Winston has shown that he can only lead the team so far. Six field goals and zero touchdowns in two games isn’t going to cut it, so bringing in McCarthy is valuable to give the Giants a chance at something.
McCarthy could absolutely flop, but that’s okay. The Giants are showing here that they believe this year’s team can still win and they want to give them a chance to be in the best position possible to compete.
David Hartman
The Giants are 2-1, but they’ve lost their most important players on offense and defense for the season. The team hoped that Jameis Winston was a capable enough backup in the event of a Jaxson Dart injury. But the offense has sputtered with Winston under center, and the team needed to add a player at the position. Today we learned that J.J. McCarthy is that player.
The Giants have had 20 possessions since Dart went down and they haven’t found the end zone in any of them. Yes, the weather was a big factor against the Titans. But 18 points (all field goals) across two full games isn’t cutting it.
McCarthy, the national championship-winning QB and 10th overall draft pick in 2024, has been a failure so far. He missed his entire rookie year with a knee injury suffered in the preseason and then was so bad in his second season that skeptics accused the Vikings of making up injuries so as to not play him. Now “Nine” gets a second chance, with the Giants.
I would’ve loved to listen in on the conversation between the Harbaugh bothers that surely happened before the Giants pulled the trigger and sent a fifth rounder to Minnesota in this deal. I wasn’t a fan of McCarthy coming out of college and am doubtful that he’ll be able to elevate the offense much above where Winston has it, if he gets the chance to start. He’s certainly more mobile, which is a plus, but he hasn’t shown an ability to make good decisions or throw with NFL-caliber accuracy. Most of the standard and advanced stats for him were terrible last season, and that was with Kevin O’Connell, who by reputation is a quarterback whisperer, tutoring him, and very good receiving weapons around him. His 35.6 QBR across 10 games last season is alarming, and ranked 30th among qualifying QBs (and second to last among QBs who started at least eight games).
I don’t know that there was anyone better out there, and McCarthy is still only 23. And sure, we’ve seen reclamation projects succeed (Sam Darnold, Baker Mayfield, Geno Smith, etc.). Still, this acquisition doesn’t move the needle much for me, and I won’t be shocked if McCarthy is simply a backup this season, barring an injury to or total collapse by Winston. Quarterback play is going to be a big issue for a Big Blue team that still has a chance to compete, and today’s move doesn’t change that.
Tony Del Genio
I admit to being puzzled by this move. John Harbaugh came to the Giants extolling the Ravens’ strategy of stockpiling draft picks. So in his first year he (and I do mean he – Joe Schoen is not in charge anymore) gives up multiple picks to move into the third round to get Malachi Fields (which I was fine with) and now gives up a fifth for McCarthy, which I’m not fine with for several reasons. It suggests Harbaugh really thinks this is a playoff-caliber team, which I do not.
It flies in the face of quarterback whisperer Kevin O’Connell’s inability to mold McCarthy into a starting-caliber, winning QB. It creates an uncomfortable dynamic with Jaxson Dart and Jameis Winston. Maybe J.J. and Dart can commiserate on meniscus repair surgery and recovery.
Barring that, though, I don’t see the long-term upside.
Chris Pflum
I fully expected the Giants to make a move for a backup quarterback, but I can’t say I saw this move coming. In part because Ed (among several others) was so adamant that it wouldn’t happen, and in part because I expected the Giants to prefer a more veteran option like Jimmy Garropolo or Justin Fields.
But, I suppose that ignored two key clues that it was more likely than anticipated.
The first is that the Giants simply love to make us wrong. There are times it almost seems like the Giants go out of their way to do the opposite of what we expect.
The second are the years McCarthy spent with Jim Harbaugh in Michigan. He’s familiar with Har-ball, the culture that the Harbaughs want to instill, and the type of offense they like to run. It’s possible, even likely, that Jim stumped for the QB with whom he won a National Championship.
While McCarthy stands as the biggest miss of my Quarterback Deep Diveseries, he has still flashed the traits that made him a high first round pick. In particular, his athleticism and arm strength should allow the Giants to use the QB run game and get explosives off of play action should they need him to see the field.
A fifth round pick is also more than I expected them to part with, but it’s also possible that they already intended to draft a developmental QB on Day 3 anyway. If so, McCarthy could have more upside than anyone they would have gotten.
Regardless, this is pretty clearly a “Harbaugh” decision, and an upgrade over Jake Haener.
