Mel Kiper Jr. compares J.J. McCarthy evaluation process to Trey Lance: 'I just don't know'

When looking at the quarterbacks on the board in the 2024 NFL Draft, the top three seem to be a consensus opinion – Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels and Drake Maye. But there’s one more who could be a top-10 pick, and the evaluation process is an interesting one.

J.J. McCarthy continues to gain traction as one of the top quarterbacks available, and ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. projected him to go to the Minnesota Vikings at No. 5 overall after a mock trade in his latest mock draft. But the evaluation process for McCarthy is interesting considering he didn’t have to throw the ball much at Michigan.

It makes him a complicated prospect to break down, and Kiper compared him to a similar situation just three years ago: Trey Lance.

“I call it my Trey Lance category now,” Kiper said Tuesday on the Waddle and Silvy show on ESPN 1000 in Chicago. “I just throw my hands [up], I just don’t know. I didn’t know what Trey Lance would be – I said it when he came out. He had one game he started, the Central Arkansas game. He wasn’t great with his arm, he was great with his legs. That was the only game, the COVID year, and he goes third. I didn’t know with Trey. I can’t say I knew he was gonna be a disappointment, didn’t know if he was gonna be a [superstar], I didn’t know. And you can say, ‘Well, you say’ – no, you can’t. You always have an idea whether he’s gonna be what kind of player.

“Now, you’re gonna be wrong, you’re gonna be right. But some guys, you just don’t know. And you just have to admit, you don’t have a feel for that player. I’ll give you a running back, Braelon Allen from Wisconsin. I don’t have a real feel for Braelon Allen. Sometimes, guys that you like, at the end of the day, it’s hard to put a rating.”

Lance’s situation was a unique one for multiple reasons. For starters, he played at the FCS level at North Dakota State and only spent one year as QB1. The pre-draft process was also different because of the COVID-19 pandemic, with much of the work done remotely. Ultimately, the San Francisco 49ers drafted him at No. 3 overall.

For McCarthy, his situation was a different kind of interesting. In two years as the starter in Jim Harbaugh and Sherrone Moore’s system, Michigan punched opponents in the mouth with its running game, led by a two-headed monster of Blake Corum and Donovan Edwards. That meant the Wolverines didn’t have to rely on McCarthy’s arm. In fact, he only had three 300-yard games during his three years in Ann Arbor, including just one during the 2023 national championship season.

Mel Kiper Jr. on J.J. McCarthy: I was waiting for ‘that game’

Scouts remain high on him, though. McCarthy has been a consistent top-15 pick through the pre-draft process and impressed scouts at the combine in March. But Kiper said he can’t point to a certain game to make the case for McCarthy to go as a top pick next week.

That’s when it all comes down to how teams view him compared to the other players on the board.

“J.J., I kept telling guys, ‘I’m waiting for that game. I’m waiting for that game to put him in my top 25.’ Never found the game,” Kiper said. “Then, I kept watching him – ‘Well, it’s not him’ – I got him in the top 25, got him to 14, 15. I take him any higher and he’s gonna go in the top five. What ranking players does – Carl Peterson always said this – you rate players and you put them on a board to protect you over-drafting somebody. That’s why you do that exercise. And what teams will usually do, there would be some GM, change the board. You heard those stories, they’d go home the night before the draft, they’d come up the next morning and the ratings changed, the board changed.

“So if you hold true to your board, you usually do well and it usually protects you against over-drafting and that’s why we do that exercise. But I would say J.J. McCarthy is a tough one for me. I didn’t know, do I put him in the middle of the first – 14, 15, 16? Guess what? He’s gonna go long before that.”