He isn’t the Giants’ Quarterback of the Future.
Nor is he (yet) the Giants’ Quarterback of the Present.
But J.J. McCarthy is happy that the Giants are no longer only a part of his past.
In his first interview since he was acquired earlier this week for a fifth-round pick to be Jameis Winston’s backup while Jaxson Dart is sidelined for the season, McCarthy said it came as a “shock” to be traded by the Vikings less than three seasons after he was a first-round pick.
“I didn’t anticipate it,” McCarthy said, “but it’s an opportunity to take advantage of.”
Some of the shock gave way to comfort when general manager Joe Schoen (who heavily scouted McCarthy, including on a Top 30 facility visit, before the 2024 draft) and head coach John Harbaugh (whose brother Jim was McCarthy’s college coach) called to make him feel wanted.
Giants quarterback J.J. McCarthy (18) at practice on Friday. Robert Sabo for NY Post
“I loved this place from the second I walked in here,” McCarthy said after Friday’s practice. “Just being able to be here now, it’s full circle. The [franchise] tradition is something I value tremendously.”
McCarthy, who was idling as the Vikings’ third-stringer after going 6-4 last season, didn’t want to look back at “the multitude of things you can think of” to explain why it didn’t work out in Minnesota. Not when he has so much to learn to make up for lost time with the Giants offense.
“I feel really good,” McCarthy said. “Offensive football is all the same concepts, for the most part. It’s about getting the verbiage down, and I feel like I’m picking it up pretty quickly. I’m focused on the next thing. Where I’ll end up is where I’ll end up when the time gets there.”
Giants quarterback J.J. McCarthy (18) at practice on Friday. Robert Sabo for NY Post
Harbaugh hasn’t decided yet whether McCarthy or Jake Haener will serve as the No. 2 quarterback Sunday against the Cardinals. Winston took the “majority” of first-team practice reps while Harbaugh is trying to figure out “how do we use?” McCarthy.
But it will be mobile McCarthy and his 100-mile-per-hour fastball sooner than later — and it’s only a matter of time before he is nipping at Winston’s heels if the offense continues to produce as it has during 19 touchdown-less possessions without Dart.
“It’s not something that you can show up in an NFL building as a quarterback and be ready to play in a week,” said quarterbacks coach Brian Callahan, though Baker Mayfield and Joe Flacco are recent examples of players who did just that. “That’s challenging.
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“But a week in the NFL feels like five [elsewhere]. As you stack those days, for a player that’s intelligent and works at it, you have a chance to get up to speed pretty quickly. We’ll push it as fast as we can make it. It’s kind of up to him and how he picks it up.”
The Callahan-McCarthy crash-course meetings started with cadence, formations, motions and shifts and moved onto revisiting the first day (and so on) of spring OTAs, which included run and pass-protection installs. Simultaneously, McCarthy is being fed the weekly game plan.
“It’s catching up on this background information and terms while he’s trying to piece together what we are actually putting together for the game plan,” Callahan said.
“Trying to close that gap from what’s been worked on for the last six months to what we’re doing today. Then you start with the pass-game terminology. Hours and hours and hours worth of that. It’s a race to see how much we can give to him and how much he’s going to be able to retain.”
McCarthy reportedly didn’t fit the locker room in Minnesota, where he had to sit his rookie season with a torn meniscus (same as Dart) while backup Sam Darnold led the team to a surprising 14-3 record. Then he lost a quarterback competition this offseason to Kyler Murray.
“That’s all in the past,” McCarthy said. “All I care about is what’s important now: that next rep, that next meeting, that next game.”
Here comes his fresh start.
“Being in the league almost 2 ½ years, who you are is who you are,” McCarthy said. “I just try to be authentic because the locker room is going to find out. I just try to do whatever I can to let them know I love this game, I’m going to work my butt off and I love these guys around me.”
McCarthy said he has not heard from Jim Harbaugh since the trade, though Jim acknowledged that John called him beforehand for coaching insight.
“Absolutely love the Harbaugh family,” McCarthy said. “They are made of the right stuff: faith, family, football. Everything he did in Baltimore was super inspiring. Being in this building, you feel it. Excited to play for him.”
McCarthy’s first step is build a relationship with Winston.
“To be able to hear how he internalizes things,” McCarthy said, “there were great conversations where I’m like, ‘Wow, that’s how a true veteran does it.’ ”