The J.J. McCarthy era as quarterback with the Minnesota Vikings has ended before he stepped onto the field for a single regular-season snap this season.
It came to a crashing but hardly surprising denouement in a fire-sale trade this week to the New York Giants, where he joins another less-than-stellar first-round quarterback draft choice, Jameis Winston. A former Heisman Trophy winner, Winston has bounced around the league with a number of disappointing seasons, characterized by great talent accompanied by poor decision-making and a propensity for interceptions and other giveaways.
Those indiscretions have placed him among the lower ranks of quarterbacks in the league, both as a starter and off the bench. He is now starting for the Giants after the season-ending injury to their young quarterback, Jaxson Dart.
The Vikings managed to obtain a lowly fifth-round draft choice next season, with the exact position depending on the Giants’ finish and the NFL’s allocation of compensatory picks. That is quite a letdown for a player drafted with high hopes as the 10th overall pick in 2024.
Injured in his first preseason game that year, McCarthy sat out one year before being given the starting position last year. That season was also marked by injuries and generally poor performance, despite a few highlights, such as the opening game in which he was named NFC Offensive Player of the Week for beating the Chicago Bears.
McCarthy’s struggles also contributed to the firing earlier this year of general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, who was primarily responsible for drafting him, although others were complicit. They included coach Kevin O’Connell, whose expertise in quarterback evaluation, training and preparation is considered superb, which didn’t seem to work in J.J.’s case.
McCarthy takes his place among the ranks of first-round quarterback busts in NFL history, including contributions by the Vikings, too. Here’s a look at a half-dozen others, including the Vikings’ other blunder.
Chronological Calumny
The calumny in picking disastrous first-round quarterbacks dips back a little bit into the last millennium.
A poster child for poor draft choices is Ryan Leaf, the supersized Washington State quarterback who was the second overall draft choice in 1998 by the San Diego Chargers. His horrible tenure with that team was followed by a brief stint playing for Dallas before he was escorted out of the league.
That was the year many regarded Leaf as a surefire star, even more so than the only player drafted ahead of him, Peyton Manning, but the savants were proved wrong. Manning went on to multiple All-Pro selections, two Super Bowl victories and a Hall of Fame career before becoming a television broadcaster and pitchman for nearly every consumer product, almost as ubiquitous as Shaquille O’Neal.
Tim Couch, the first pick in the following year’s draft by the expansion Cleveland Browns, also flopped. A star at Kentucky and considered a can’t-miss prospect, he had five bleak seasons in the league, although much of his failure was attributable to the poor players around him, particularly the porous offensive line that allowed him to be sacked 56 times as a rookie.
The very first pick in the 2007 draft was JaMarcus Russell, the top collegiate quarterback of the previous season from Louisiana State University. He seemed such a good fit for the Oakland Raiders that he received a contract worth up to $68 million. But there was no guarantee that he would succeed, and he didn’t. He compiled a 7–18 win-loss record before the Raiders released him in 2010.
The Vikings contributed Christian Ponder, their 2011 first-round draft choice from Florida State. He was heralded as a brainy quarterback but lacked the skills to keep him from being run out of the league.
The Browns continued their pattern in 2014 when they selected Johnny Manziel, the elusive and unpredictable Heisman Trophy winner from Texas A&M, who was known as an offbeat character both on and off the field.
The Vikings were flirting with taking him at the time but were pondering Ponder’s failure, which made the club gun-shy about pulling the trigger because of their sorrowful experience with him.
Manziel, the 22nd choice in that draft, hung on for a couple of years with the Browns, then went to play three-down, 110-yard football in Canada, followed by stints in other leagues. His undeniable quarterback talents did not translate well from college to the professional game.
The New York Jets, a woeful team for decades, continued that pattern when drafting Zach Wilson from Brigham Young University in 2021 as the second overall pick. He played three rotten seasons with the team, pilloried by the extremely demanding New York fan base, then meandered around the league and is still hanging on as a New Orleans backup.
Somewhat Successes
Despite the McCarthy mishap and the Ponder problem, the Vikings have had some success when drafting quarterbacks in the first round. Tommy Kramer, the 1977 first-round draft choice from Rice, was a solid albeit divisive figure for more than a decade with the team. Although he had his ups and downs off the field, he managed to be in the upper half of his ilk during most of his career.
Daunte Culpepper, the 1999 first-round draft choice, might have done better. His career had reached impressive heights before he suffered a season-ending knee injury in 2005 that brought his tenure with the Vikings to an end and effectively ruined his career. He hobbled around the league with other clubs for a few years after that injury, losing twice to the Vikings.
Yet another knee injury derailed the Vikings career of Teddy Bridgewater, their 2014 first-round draft choice. He suffered a horrendous noncontact mishap during practice on Aug. 30, 2016, shortly before the Vikings began their first season in their current U.S. Bank Stadium. Although he returned to the field briefly for Minnesota in 2017, his days as the team’s starting quarterback were over. He went on to play for several other NFL teams.
Selections & Stars
These first-round busts pale in significance beside the quarterbacks who were first-round selections and had successful careers.
There are, of course, many of these stars, including Terry Bradshaw of the Pittsburgh Steelers, who led his team to four Super Bowl victories; the aforementioned Manning, as well as his brother, Eli Manning, who has two Super Bowl championships to his credit with the New York Giants; Aaron Rodgers, a four-time Most Valuable Player and one-time Super Bowl champion with the Green Bay Packers, now finishing up with the Pittsburgh Steelers after a dismal stint with the New York Jets; and John Elway, who won two Super Bowls with the Denver Broncos after three Super Bowl losses.
Then there is Patrick Mahomes, the Kansas City quarterback and son of former Minnesota Twins pitcher Pat Mahomes, who has won three Super Bowls with the Chiefs. They are among a number who have done well as first-round draft choices.
There are also those who have become stars despite their selection, or lack thereof, in the draft. Tom Brady, the winner of seven Super Bowls, six with the Patriots and one with Tampa Bay, was a sixth-round draft choice selected from Michigan with the 199th pick in the 2000 draft. He became a three-time league MVP and is considered by many the “GOAT,” Greatest of All Time.
A player who received even less draft respect and is still going strong, Brock Purdy, was the 262nd and last player drafted in 2022, earning the sobriquet “Mr. Irrelevant.” The Iowa State quarterback has led his San Francisco 49ers to one Super Bowl appearance and multiple deep playoff runs and is an early-season candidate for the NFL’s Most Valuable Player.
Then there are those whose paths to professional stardom were even less direct.
Johnny Unitas, the Baltimore Colts’ wizard passer of the 1950s and 1960s who helped popularize the sport for television audiences, was a ninth-round draft choice of Pittsburgh in 1955 after a middling college career at the University of Louisville. The Steelers cut him before the season, and the Colts took him off a Pittsburgh-area sandlot the following year. He went on to the Hall of Fame.
Kurt Warner, a winner with the then-St. Louis Rams, a Hall of Fame quarterback and now a radio broadcaster, once stocked grocery shelves in Iowa. His route to the Rams included arena football and NFL Europe. He helped lead the “Greatest Show on Turf,” as it was called, to a pair of Super Bowl appearances, including one victory, and later appeared in a Super Bowl losing effort with Arizona.
The rosters, locker rooms and playing fields of pro football are filled with other overachievers and, like McCarthy, underachievers. But like the other busts, McCarthy’s saga is not yet concluded. Despite his current lowly status, he still stands a chance of reviving his career.
But, as those who indulge in fantasy football or run the various prediction pools might caution: “Don’t bet on it.”
