Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy just may be the most polarizing player in the 2024 NFL Draft class.
Scouts, coaches, general managers and draft analysts remain quite divided about where exactly McCarthy falls in the scheme of the first round. The closer it gets to draft time (it’s nine days away), the more rumblings have come to light about the goings on behind the scenes at Michigan involving McCarthy.
In fact, an anonymous AFC scout recently suggested to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler that McCarthy was operating from a “training wheels” version of the Wolverines’ playbook.
“I don’t see consistent accuracy, his ability to get it done inside the white lines, and [the Michigan staff] didn’t call games or play offensively like they trusted him,” the scout said.
An anonymous AFC coach even went so far as to tell Fowler that, despite former Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh hyping up McCarthy as a generational prospect, he had nowhere near the same amount of faith in him as he did Harbaugh’s former prized pupil Andrew Luck.
“Harbaugh didn’t trust him like he did Andrew Luck,” the AFC coach said. “When he makes a mistake, Harbaugh leans into the running game even more so during the flow of the game.”
The big knock on McCarthy during the draft process was the fact that he was never asked to go out and win games for the Wolverines.
Playing on the best team in the country with arguably the best roster, McCarthy rarely played meaningful minutes in the fourth quarter, and scouts have very little to go on in evaluating his ability to put a team on his shoulders and lead them to a win with the game on the line.
