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JJ McCarthy Is All About One Thing — Winning
Michigan's former quarterback didn't put up eye-popping numbers but he did everything else right, including winning every single game he ever started except for one.
Former Michigan quarterback JJ McCarthy is a born winner. He won two state championships while at Nazareth Academy in Illinois, he won a high school national title while at IMG Academy during his senior season and he obviously just put a bow on a perfect 15-0, national championship run during his junior season at Michigan.
Bleacher Report's NFL Insider Jordan Schultz recently spoke about McCarthy's pedigree on The Herd with Colin Cowherd and explained the above run and why it's exciting to so many NFL executives.
While at Michigan, McCarthy finished his career with a 27-1 record as a starter, the best winning percentage (96.4) by any college quarterback since Toledo's Chuck Ealey (1971) and Oklahoma's Jimmy Harris (1956) ended their careers with 35-0 and 25-0 records, respectively. Again, his numbers were somewhat modest — 6,226 yards, 49 touchdowns, 11 interceptions — over the course of three seasons (two as a starter), but he was efficient, clutch and obviously extremely successful.
McCarthy didn't have a Joe Burrow-like season, most don't, but he put enough on film when it comes to making NFL throws, reading defenses and staying calm in the pocket vs. running out and extending plays to potentially jump into the top 3 of this month's NFL Draft. Some have said that he might just go No. 2 to the Washington Commanders and others think it's very likely that he'll end up in New England at No. 3.
Earlier this week, on Monday's edition of NBC Sports Boston's Boston Sports Tonight, co-host Michael Holley shared some insight regarding McCarthy and the Patriots.
"There's a really good chance he could wind up on the New England Patriots," Holley said of McCarthy. "I'm hearing more and more chatter that McCarthy is high, if not first, on the boards of the Washington Commanders and the New England Patriots. He may be QB1 for both of those teams."
It's going to be really interesting to see where McCarthy ends up. Obviously for his pocket, he's hoping to go to as high as possible. If he wants to go to the best situation, it's probably not with the Patriots. The Commanders have a few more weapons and the Minnesota Vikings certainly do too, and they've been mentioned as a possible team that could trade up to get into a position to draft McCarthy. No one knows exactly how it'll play out, but we all will soon as the draft is set to take place, in Detroit, on April 25.
