2024 NFL Draft: College-to-pro projections for Michigan QB J.J. McCarthy

The 2024 NFL Draft is fast approaching. The PFF big board is live, mock draft season is in full swing and the 2024 NFL Scouting Combine has wrapped up.

This year's draft presents an exciting quarterback class chock full of big names. USC's Caleb Williams headlines the group as one of the nation's premier playmakers, but North Carolina's Drake Maye, LSU's Jayden Daniels, Michigan's J.J. McCarthy and Oregon's Bo Nix have all been taken in the first round of recent mock drafts.

Let's look at Michigan's J.J. McCarthy, the 2024 college football national champion.

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SCOUTING SUMMARY

McCarthy comes from a pro-style offense. As a first-time starter in 2022, he struggled to get off his primary read, fell for sim pressures and didn't have good instincts when pressured. In 2023, all of that improved, though that improvement needs to continue.

His arm talent is good, both for velocity and natural accuracy. However, he does need to continue to get stronger to get his arm talent to an NFL level. His throwing motion is clean and efficient from his footwork to his follow-through.

You won't build a rushing attack around his mobility, but he is a good athlete who is a threat on RPOs and scramble plays.

**Click here** to see J.J. McCarthy's 2024 NFL Draft profile.

WINS ABOVE AVERAGE

WAA represents the number of wins a player is worth over an average college football player and is a metric that evaluators can utilize to assess performance. It combines how well a player performed in each facet of play (using PFF grades) and how valuable each facet is to winning football games. The result is a first-of-its-kind metric that allows for cross-positional valuation and predicts future value at the player and team levels.

HOW MCCARTHY RANKS IN THE STABLE METRICS

The most stable facets of quarterback play are those with the biggest sample sizes — even though they intuitively seem “easier.” When projecting a quarterback’s future output, their performance from a clean pocket, on early downs and with no play action should be weighted heavily, and these are strong components when projecting PFF’s Wins Above Replacement metric. Good quarterbacks dominate these situations, while lesser quarterbacks rank near the bottom of the league. Negatively graded plays are also highly correlated from year to year, meaning the quarterback is largely in control of their negatives, while their positive plays may fluctuate due to supporting cast and play calling.

Compared to other players with PFF college data, McCarthy’s metrics in the most predictive of data subsets measured up fairly well.

J.J. McCarthy’s percentile ranks in the most stable passing stats since 2021.

McCarthy wasn’t asked to do a ton for Michigan, but he played on time and managed to push the ball past the sticks. The Michigan quarterback was also surgical on play-action dropbacks over the last two seasons, with his 92.3 passing grade on those plays good for fourth among qualifying FBS quarterbacks.

MCCARTHY’S PROJECTIONS

In league-average circumstances, here are McCarthy’s projections for yards per attempt and completion percentage as a rookie:

McCarthy’s rookie-year projections in a league-average scheme with a play-action rate of 25%, a pressure rate of 35%, a quick-throw rate (under 2.5 seconds) of 50% and a short-throw rate (before the sticks) of 63%.

Let’s look at how McCarthy does when we make his situation better. With a low pressure rate, high play-action rate and more down-the-field looks, things look similar.

McCarthy’s 2024 projections in a situation where 25% of his dropbacks have pressure and he runs play action on 30% of his dropbacks.

Let’s also look at how McCarthy does when we make the situation less favorable. With a high pressure rate and low play-action rate, McCarthy’s completion percentage takes a little bit of a hit.

McCarthy’s 2024 projections in a situation where 40% of his dropbacks have pressure and he runs play action on just 15% of his dropbacks.

BOTTOM LINE FROM PFF's 2024 NFL DRAFT GUIDE

McCarthy is not a finished product, but he is a growing quarterback with experience in a pro-style offense and good tools (physical and mental) to be a starting QB in the NFL.