Orlando – Los Angeles Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh said today at the NFL Owner’s Meeting – ‘J.J. McCarthy is the best QB in this draft.”
McCarthy played for Harbaugh at Michigan, so some might consider him biased on this topic.
However, something else he said needs to be considered about why he feels McCarthy is the best QB prospect in this draft.
“He’s the one who played quarterback,” Harbaugh said.
Some people might say, “What the hell does that mean, all the quarterback prospects play quarterback.”
What Harbaugh meant by, “He’s the only one who played quarterback” is that of all the top QB prospects, McCarthy is the only one who played in an NFL offense in college.
“J.J. McCarthy is the only guy who [ran] a pro-style offense at the line of scrimmage,” said NFL analyst Mark Schlereth on FS1. “He’s got different personal groupings. He’s calling plays. He’s not just looking at the sidelines going, ‘What do these cards say?’ That’s not what they’re doing at Michigan.”
In other words, he’s not getting a simple one-read throw call from the sideline, but looking at the defense, and making adjustments.
“[Michigan’s offense] is a pro-style – you are motioning guys, you’re in charge of flexing tight ends and motioning them across the formation and understanding what [the defense is in] pre-snap to determine where you want to go with the ball,” Schlereth said. “This is why he’s climbing up the draft boards because he was the only guy responsible at the line of scrimmage. To me, he’s the one guy who has the most pre-snap transferrable skills to the NFL.”
So that is what Harbaugh is talking about when he says, “McCarthy is the best QB in the draft.”
It’s not just pom-pom waiving.
Time will tell if he is right.
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