Where has JJ McCarthy grown most as a thrower?
McCarthy, Kevin O'Connell and Wes Phillips break down McCarthy's ever-improving passing
By Matthew Coller
EAGAN — How did JJ McCarthy look in OTAs and minicamp?
Well, in practices that are largely dominated by walk-through periods with a handful of 7-on-7 and red zone reps mixed in, there is no football scout alive who would be able to watch these “learning phase” workouts and tell you how good McCarthy is going to be in 2025 but one thing that we clearly observed about McCarthy from the five spring practices open to the media was that he was throwing the football with accuracy, velocity, confidence.
The young quarterback, who returned from six months without full-speed action, looked very similar to the way he threw the ball in training camp and preseason last year if not better. Teammates took notice.
“He has one of the best zips I've seen since being in the league, and I've been around some guys who could sling it,” safety Josh Metellus said.
“He definitely has an arm, that's for sure,” Justin Jefferson said. “He can definitely zip it whenever he needs.”
Veteran tight end TJ Hockenson also gave a testimonial regarding McCarthy’s arm strength on the Green Light podcast with former NFL player Chris Long.
"His arm talent is there,” Hockenson said. “He's got a sick arm. I told him this the other day, I said I remember catching passes from [Matthew Stafford] and it's one of those balls and it just zips on you. It looks like it's not coming, but it's coming — and J.J.'s got the juice behind it where it kind of has that effect. It doesn't look like it's coming, it's a tight spiral, but it's coming. It's humming in the air. He's got an insane talent, arm talent, and really the personality he has goes really well and I think he's going to have a long career."
The pop in McCarthy’s throws wasn’t as noticeable to some draft analysts when he was coming out in the draft.
NFL.com’s Lance Zierlein wrote: “Modest arm strength might be magnified by windup in his delivery.”
Longtime evaluator Greg Cosell included McCarthy’s arm under “weaknesses” in his pre-draft scouting report of the ex-Michigan signal caller. He wrote:
“Doesn't have a naturally strong arm. Needs a firm base with his front foot pointing to the target to drive the ball with velocity. Some deeper intermediate and deep throws lose energy on the back end. Has a good arm but not an explosive arm.”
During minicamp, McCarthy’s deep and intermediate throws shone through, particularly a completion to Jordan Addison that traveled about 40-45 yards in the air right over the head of safety Harrison Smith for a completion.
Where is the disconnect between what analysts saw before the draft and what everyone is seeing now?
An obvious explanation might be that McCarthy came out as one of the younger quarterbacks in the draft and has spent the last year working with Josh McCown and Kevin O’Connell, two ex-NFL QBs. Technique rather than raw talent may have been behind some of the throws that did not impress draft analysts. He is also bigger now than he was a year ago.
“I think JJ has always had a strong arm,” offensive coordinator Wes Phillips said. “I mean, we saw that when we went to Michigan and worked him out. He's physically in really good condition right now, so that's always going to be somewhat of a factor. But he's got a natural ability to kind of put that zip on the ball.”
The biggest critique of McCarthy at this time last year was that he wasn’t putting enough touch on the ball when throwing certain routes. He acknowledged on Thursday that he was trying to throw heat all the time when he was in college.
“I believe I've grown the most on just the different level of trajectories of throws,” McCarthy said. “At Michigan, I was kind of a one-speed pitch kind of guy.”
Phillips explained that each throw has its own type of speed and arc required, like a golfer hitting a stinger or a flop shot depending on the situation.
“I think what you're seeing, and it's kind of a process from last year, is you're seeing his ability to be able to layer some balls and throw some different types of balls, depending on maybe you're throwing to a back or throwing a tight end on a quick stick route you know something close to him where you're seeing some of the touch or just layering some balls on really deep in-cut types of things that are starting to show up,” Phillips said. “I know he's put a lot of work into it.”
O’Connell said that he always felt McCarthy’s raw arm strength has “always been there” but the Vikings’ new starter has been improving in his usage of that arm strength to find completions.
“There's been some growth from a standpoint of, you can call it throw variation, arm talent,” O’Connell explained. “From a standpoint of, ‘how do I get this ball completed?’ Where maybe there's not a direct path, but I've got to throw it up and over somebody, and I might only have eight to 10 yards of space in the end zone in a low red period to get that done.”
One thing that makes evaluating OTA/minicamp practices difficult is that McCarthy is being encouraged by his coaches to try throws against certain looks in order to see if they work. There is a lot of trial and error.
“What I want to compliment him on is that he's making the attempts,” O’Connell said. “He's learning what it feels like to attempt those throws so now he can figure out exactly how to apply those reps moving forward to when it's real football and it matters, which is why I think it's always unique when we start really evaluating and grading each individual rep this time of year, because really that goes totally against how I like these guys to attack these, eight, nine weeks of work to try to set themselves up to be the best players when those 17-plus games come about.”
By “unique,” O’Connell means dubious.
“I'm trying to experiment as much as possible because this is the time to do it,” McCarthy said. “This is the time to try things. This is the time to talk through different reads with KO [Kevin O’Connell], and it's a blessing to be able to have that coaching staff behind me that supports me and encourages that. That's the quickest way you're going to learn, the quickest way you're going to grow. So, I've been doing that pretty much every day.”
Still, we can observe McCarthy’s overall comfort running the operation. A partial explanation for that is knowing the footwork involved with each throw. When McCarthy first arrived last year in OTAs and minicamp, he needed time to adapt but these days he seems comfortable with the footwork.
“Footwork, I feel like it's improved tremendously since last year, but there's still fine tuning things that we’ve got to address and work on, especially this upcoming five weeks, five and a half weeks, it's going to be huge,” McCarthy said. “Just smoothing things out and making it be as natural as possible, and the timing with each concept, each route. So, there's still work to always improve on. But night and day from last year for sure.”
Phillips pointed particularly at the improvement in his base when throwing.
“Going back to his college days there were times where you get a really wide base and and your accuracy can sometimes suffer,” Phillips said. “He's put a lot of hard work into learning our offense. What's the proper footwork? How does that tie in with routes that are coming open at about the same time that his feet are in the right place? …You don't always get a chance in the NFL but if you can get your feet set to the throw, it’s just like throwing to me to you and I can just I can just click right on through a read and, you know, he's showing a lot of improvement.”
Improvement will continue to be the name of the game as McCarthy takes the foundation from minicamp and transfers that to training camp in just over a month.
“It just comes with the reps on reps on the field, just like you're working on your chips and in a golf game,” McCarthy said. “Just finding that feel over and over again, and having this much time off and not throwing the ball since the injury, I’m just finding that feel again. It’s just the ultimate blessing that I get to get out here and take advantage of these six weeks off and really work on those different kind of pitches.”
Considering McCarthy is coming off a major injury and long recovery process, throwing the football as well has he has during minicamp is a big first hurdle cleared. Once training camp arrives, the pressure for results in practice will ramp up.
Oh, and now that he’s a Year 2 NFL player, we can just put those old scouting reports away.
If you've got a teammate who played with Matthew Stafford comparing your arm strength to his, then I think it's safe to say that's not going to be an issue.
McCarthy definitely had a few deep passes in college that were a little short, so I’m assuming that is where the arm strength thing comes from, but those always looked to me like they were more of a technique and deep ball accuracy issue than arm strength.