Michigan Wolverines quarterback J.J. McCarthy might not be at the top of most mock draft boards right now, but one prominent NFL Draft analyst seems to think that when all is said and done, he will be a top-15 pick.
During a recent appearance on ESPN’s College GameDay Podcast, ESPN NFL Draft analyst Matt Miller said that he truly believes that J.J. McCarthy will ultimately be a top-15 pick in the upcoming NFL Draft.
“I know this is going to surprise a lot of people, but I truly believe this, that he will be a top 15 draft pick,” Miller said on the podcast according to On3. “Evaluators are in love with the tools, and with the mental make-up. There’s this belief that at Michigan, he was kind of you know, there were guard rails put up for him, because they had such a great run game. They had an offensive line that could just overpower people. We saw that in the second half against Penn State. He didn’t attempt a pass that wasn’t called back for a penalty. So I think that right now, you know with McCarthy, it’s more the things that you don’t know, you’re comfortable with, and you can kind of excuse those away.
“Michigan didn’t throw the ball a lot. Outside of Roman Wilson, they didn’t really have an established wide receiver. It’s not the way Jim Harbaugh was running that offense. They were playing to win games, not showcase J.J. McCarthy as a draft prospect. So I think those question marks about J.J. that we’ll have heading into the Combine are ones that you know, people are pretty comfortable with. He lost one game in college football. That gets brought up when you talk to scouts about J.J. McCarthy all of the time. One game. So he’s a leader, he’s a winner. The arm strength and athleticism are really good as well. … Where things are right now for him, I would say he pretty comfortably goes in that first half of the first round.”
This is certainly a shocking prediction considering quarterbacks like Caleb Williams, Drake Maye, Michael Penix Jr. and Bo Nix are all currently projected to be taken ahead of him, but it will certainly be interesting to see if Miller’s prediction holds true.
[ESPN]
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