One commonly held thought about next week’s NFL Draft is that there’s a chance quarterbacks could be taken with the first four picks for the first time.
What if, instead, Michigan’s J.J. McCarthy was sitting there for the Broncos to take at No. 12?
NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah raised the possibility during a Wednesday conference call ahead of the draft, painting a scenario that would allow Denver to take him without moving draft capital.
If Minnesota, which holds Nos. 11 and 23, trades up and takes North Carolina’s Drake Maye, Jeremiah thinks McCarthy might make it to No. 12.
“I don’t know who the other J.J. McCarthy team is,” Jeremiah said. “At that point, if you’re Denver and you’re staying there at No. 12 — you’re hearing reports that they like (McCarthy) — then you stick and pick and you get the fourth quarterback right there at No. 12 because I don’t think there’s another McCarthy team if it’s not the Vikings.”
The top 15 of the draft is littered with quarterback-needy teams. That includes each of the top three — Chicago, Washington and New England — along with the New York Giants at No. 6 and then Minnesota, Denver and Las Vegas in succession from 11-13. That, combined with a group of six quarterbacks who could go in the first round, has driven months of conversation about a feeding frenzy at the top of the draft.
The question, then, is if that actually pans out or if enough teams either trade down — New England, Arizona and the L.A. Chargers at 3-5 are all candidates — or opt for one of a group of talented receivers and offensive tackles to space out the quarterbacks.
“You go back and forth on, is this a huge competition? Or are we just making this up?” NFL Network analyst Chad Reuter told The Denver Post recently. “Maybe these teams really don’t have that high of a grade on (Washington’s Michael) Penix or (Oregon’s Bo) Nix and I could really see that happening. Or McCarthy for that matter. Is there a huge difference between McCarthy and Nix? Maybe not.”
Of course, this could all end with Washington and New England snapping up quarterbacks with the second and third picks and either Minnesota, the Giants or Broncos trading up to No. 4 for McCarthy.
“It’s a difficult evaluation because you can see him do everything you want him to do or you need a big-time quarterback to do, it’s just the numbers in terms of volume is not there,” Jeremiah said of McCarthy. “If you look at him from a size standpoint, I think he’s put on like 15 pounds in the last year, I think he’s still growing into his body and he’s going to be a bigger guy. Everybody at the pro days that I talked to said he threw it as well or better than any of the other quarterbacks. He’s got a big-time, live arm. He’s got enough size, still growing, big arm, incredibly smart. There’s things to latch on to. You’re just going to have to have some faith — and some do and some don’t — on what you’re buying there.”
Bottom line: Jeremiah referred multiple times to the Vikings and Broncos as two teams in the McCarthy conversation.
“In terms of him going, the Vikings are the team that’s connected to him and then the Denver Broncos. Is that enough to warrant a move all the way up there or can those teams try to be patient and see how it falls?
“I’ll put it this way: If you told me J.J. McCarthy goes beyond the 12th pick, I’d be shocked. Outside of that, everything is on the table, whether that’s a trade up to four or five, whether that’s a trade-up just a couple of spots or whether those teams stand pat. I think all those options are in play.”
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