Look, I still want to be a believer in J.J. McCarthy. He’s 23, he’s an underrated athlete in my opinion. He has a personality that the locker buys into. But the reality is right now he’s nowhere close to being an NFL quarterback. After watching the handful of drives with McCarthy at the helm followed up by Wentz it’s hard to be serious about 9 being QB2. Yes, there’s lots of preseason left, but at what point do we have to call a spade a spade.
McCarthy finished the day 4/7 for 34 yards. Wentz didn’t blow anyone away going 9/14 for 81 yards. But just watching the two, it was clear as day who had a grasp for an NFL offense and who didn’t. Sure, Wentz was going against 3rd stringers or guys fighting for a job. But McCarthy still looks overmatched. He waits way too long to make a read. He throws balls off his back foot. And his common miss is still a fastball over receiver’s heads. And this was all against a second-string defense.
This looks like the exact same version of JJM we saw for big stretches last year. One phrase I hear a lot on podcasts since we drafted McCarthy. “This doesn’t mean he’s a bust or his careers’ over.” Well, at some point the tape and reps does mean our former 1sr round pick is a bust. This is a fairly simple throw an NFL QB has to make, And McCarthy has shown he can’t make these throws on a regular basis.
There’s a lot of preseason left for McCarthy to prove me wrong, but if we are basing it off of today’s performance then he has no business being QB2. Especially if we want to be rationale about the position and assume Kyler is going to miss a few starts due to injury.
Let’s just hope none of that comes to fruition and Kyler balls out this year
