Michigan Football Shares Some Blame for JJ McCarthy's NFL Career

Who is the greatest quarterback to ever wear the winged helmet? If you ask Jim Harbaugh, it’s 2023 national champion, JJ McCarthy.

McCarthy was promoted to starting quarterback in 2022 after playing sparingly as a freshman in 2021 behind Cade McNamera.

McCarthy did not put up the gaudiest numbers during his career at Michigan, but the Wolverines won a lot of games with him under center.

McCarthy finished his career 3-0 against Ohio State, 2-0 as a starter, won two Big Ten titles, and of course the aforementioned national championship which capped off a historic 15-0 season.

After the national championship season, McCarthy declared for the NFL Draft, and was selected in the first round by the Minnesota Vikings.

If someone was rooting for McCarthy to succeed at the next level, he could have done much worse than landing in Minnesota with their supporting cast. Justin Jefferson is one of the best receivers in football. Jordan Addison and TJ Hockenson make for a solid supporting cast around Jefferson.

JJ McCarthy at Michigan♨️

46 Passing TDs
10 Rushing TDs
576 Rushing Yards
5,865 Passing Yards
68.1%

2023 Big Ten QB of the year pic.twitter.com/GEK72gm8dM
— College Football Report (@CFBReport) December 4, 2023

Kevin O’Connell is consistently revered for his abilities as a quarterback whisperer, and their defense is hellacious under defensive coordinator Brian Flores.

It felt like McCarthy found the perfect landing spot.

Fast forward two years and McCarthy has been traded to the New York Giants in exchange for a fifth-round pick.

It took less than two years from McCarthy to go from the penthouse to the outhouse in Minnesota, as he was the third string quarterback for the first three games this season.

There are plenty of reasons that McCarthy did not work out in Minnesota, but one question that is fair to ask at this point is how much blame Michigan and their offense deserves for McCarthy’s struggles.

Program Identity

Anyone who follows Michigan football knows the deal with their program. They pride themselves on a big, powerful offensive line with a rushing attack designed to bully opposing defenses.

The Michigan offense peaked with that identity during the stretch that spanned 2021-2023, most notably against Ohio State. Michigan bullied the Buckeyes in three straight seasons to knock them off, and catapult themselves into the Big Ten championship game.

McCarthy was able to make some big plays, but was mostly asked to manage the game as run games led by Hassan Haskins, Blake Corum, and Donovan Edwards led the way.

To Michigan’s defense here, their coaching staff’s job is to win. No coach gets hired or fired based on the amount of players they send to the next level. They’re hired based on how many games they win.

Michigan’s job was to do what they thought was best to win.

McCarthy’s Career

A common retort from the Michigan coaching staff when asked about McCarthy’s abilities or lack thereof was that he could do more if he was asked to. They did not want to rely on him to be superman, because it’s an unfair position to put a quarterback in.

In three seasons, McCarthy attempted 713 passes, and never exceeded 332 in a season.

For comparison’s sake Kyle McCord threw 348 passes for Ohio State in 2023, and a whopping 593 after transferring to Syracuse.

McCarthy’s job description was clear. Play well, distribute the ball to his playmakers, and protect the football. McCarthy never threw more than five interceptions in his two seasons as a starter, and had a passer rating of 155.0 in 2022 and 167.4 in 2023.

Forever a Michigan Man 💙🙏 pic.twitter.com/0i50FzLsoB
— J.J. McCarthy (@jjmccarthy09) January 14, 2024

It did not matter how well McCarthy played, the fact that Michigan was a run-first program was always going to lead to questions about whether he could lead a team if the game was put fully on his shoulders.

Those questions got even louder when Michigan won at Penn State in 2023 with 32 consecutive runs to finish off a game. Could a team who has a first round pick at quarterback really decide to just run the ball 32 times in a row?

Well, Michigan did. They won, but there could be more issues that stem from that.

Future Problems?

McCarthy’s career has not gotten off to the start he’d hoped for in the NFL. He was injured during his rookie season and missed the whole year. Sam Darnold had a renaissance year that year, and the Vikings won 14 games.

The Vikings allowed Darnold to walk that offseason, and McCarthy and the Vikings did not live up to expectations. He was demoted to QB3 this year before getting traded on Monday.

Questions about Michigan’s offense can only get louder in a situation like the one that presented itself with McCarthy.

Bryce Underwood was a five-star recruit who chose Michigan, sure, but he was committed to LSU first. He’s since admitted it was a business decision to go to Michigan as opposed to LSU.

That can be translated as Michigan had to pay significantly more than it might have had to if they were wired differently on offense.

Think of some of the other quarterbacks they’ve missed on in recent years. Notre Dame’s CJ Carr and Oregon’s Dante Moore.

Both players were under recruited by Jim Harbaugh and his staff, but would they have even wanted to come to Michigan if the coaching staff focused more on them?

Maybe. They also would have been justified if there were some questions that followed.

Prior to McCarthy, the last Michigan quarterback who had any semblance of success in the NFL was Chad Henne. Most of Henne’s work came as a backup in Kansas City after he flamed out as a starter in Miami.

Sure, the legacy of Michigan quarterbacks is Tom Brady, but even that is oversold to some degree.

Michigan deserves credit, and receives plenty from Brady himself for developing him.

It’s also true that Brady was picked 199th overall, and there was a lot of good fortune for him to even make the Patriots’ roster as a rookie, let alone get into the starting lineup.

As Michigan continues on this path in the post-McCarthy era, there are some questions that could be worth considering.

Can Michigan win with an offensive identity that is so run-centric that it could scare off top quarterback recruits? Would they need to strike gold and find someone like McCarthy again? As a reminder, the last time Michigan won a national title before the 2023 season was 1997 when they shared the title with Nebraska.

Before that, it was 1948. It’s hard to win in college football, and it’s even harder now with all of the new factors at play that had not existed before.

These are all questions that Michigan’s coaching staff will need to answer. If they can continue to develop Bryce Underwood, that will silence a lot of critics about the way their program develops quarterbacks for the NFL.

If they can’t, an uphill battle for recruiting quarterbacks will only get harder.

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