{"id":914307,"date":"2026-10-03T05:28:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T05:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/914307\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T05:28:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T05:28:12","slug":"nfl-scout-assistant-coach-share-bad-news-about-mccarthy-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/914307\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL scout, assistant coach share bad news about McCarthy trade"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York Giants<\/a>\u00a0took a flier on a project quarterback when they acquired 2024 first-round draft pick J.J. McCarthy<\/a> from the Minnesota Vikings<\/a>\u00a0for a 2027 fifth-round draft choice earlier this week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It sounds like an\u00a0NFL<\/a>\u00a0scout and an assistant coach think Giants fans should be realistic about what McCarthy will and won’t offer the club.<\/p>\n

Vikings may know all there is to know about J.J. McCarthy<\/p>\n

“There\u2019s no doubt McCarthy has talent,” the scout told\u00a0Ralph Vacchiano<\/a>\u00a0of Fox Sports for an article published on Thursday. “He\u2019s probably a good fit for what [the Giants] want to do, too. But honestly, if the Vikings were willing to dump their one-time franchise quarterback for a fifth-round pick, you really got to wonder what they know. Teams don\u2019t usually dump young quarterbacks like that, especially ones they took 10th overall.”<\/p>\n

The Vikings discarded<\/a> McCarthy, who spent his entire rookie season recovering from a\u00a0full meniscus repair<\/a>, after he made just 10<\/a>\u00a0regular-season starts for the club. This summer, Vikings\u00a0head coach Kevin O\u2019Connell named free-agent signing Kyler Murray the team’s Week 1 starter before Minnesota’s first preseason game arrived. Later, O\u2019Connell relegated McCarthy to QB3 duties behind journeyman Carson Wentz.<\/p>\n

“Think about that,” the assistant coach told Vacchiano. “[McCarthy] couldn\u2019t beat out Murray or Wentz. That doesn\u2019t happen to a high first-round pick. That\u2019s what happens with late-round and practice squad-type guys. So that tells you everything about what Minnesota thinks of him. Maybe a change of scenery will help. But O\u2019Connell is pretty good with quarterbacks. If he couldn\u2019t get anything out of the kid, I don\u2019t know if anyone on the Giants can.”<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNot everybody agrees with those J.J. McCarthy assessments<\/p>\n

Los Angeles Chargers<\/a> head coach Jim Harbaugh<\/a> served as McCarthy’s coach when the two were at the University of Michigan, and Harbaugh seemingly helped convince<\/a> Giants head coach and brother John Harbaugh<\/a> to give McCarthy a chance to jump-start his career with the NFC East team.<\/p>\n

“A fresh start with people that chose him is a good thing,” a talent evaluator told Vacchiano while speaking about McCarthy. “The Harbaugh history helps, too. (Giants offensive coordinator) Matt Nagy, I would think, knows what he\u2019s doing, too. It reminds me of when guys like Mac Jones, Sam Darnold or Baker Mayfield go somewhere to back up and hopefully become a starter somewhere else someday.”<\/p>\n

Nagy seemingly<\/a> isn’t in a rush to insert McCarthy into the New York lineup over Jameis Winston<\/a>, who will start for the 2-1 Giants when they host the 1-2 Arizona Cardinals<\/a>\u00a0this coming Sunday. That said, the Giants’ trade for McCarthy has left many outsiders assuming that John Harbaugh fears Winston won’t be an adequate replacement for injured QB1 Jaxson Dart through the rest of this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New York Giants\u00a0took a flier on a project quarterback when they acquired 2024 first-round draft pick J.J.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":914308,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,593,85],"class_list":["post-914307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=914307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/914308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=914307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=914307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=914307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}