What a crock: Debunking the myth of J.J. McCarthy's lack of arm strength
There are some who feel the Vikings quarterback only has OK arm strength. Here's what they're missing.
Colin Cowherd, a prominent talking head on FOX Sports, continued to do his best Wednesday to make the case that J.J. McCarthy will be a bust in his first season as the Vikings’ starting quarterback.
“There's so much mystery here,” Cowherd said. “Why does Minnesota keep flirting with other quarterbacks? And there's too many conflicting reports on J.J. McCarthy, so I just find the whole thing. … There's a lot of stuff I just don't know. I feel sometimes I'm getting a little bit of a spin job here. . . I never buy this: When you say this about a quarterback, that guy is a winner. Everybody under Jim Harbaugh and Steve Spurrier and Nick Saban's a winner. I don't want to hear that. If you go back and look (McCarthy’s) arm is modest. His escape ability is modest. His release wasn't super quick. There is no great trait."
Cowherd is entitled to his opinion on McCarthy or any other NFL quarterback. But he is the latest to parrot one thing that is laughably wrong: McCarthy has a “modest” arm.
There are things to question about McCarthy, who will be entering his first season as the Vikings’ starter after missing 2024 because of a torn meniscus in his right knee that required two surgeries. But after watching McCarthy in two Organized Team Activity practices and three minicamp sessions, calling his arm modest means you simply haven’t watched him.
Greg Cosell, who serves as an NFL analyst and senior producer at NFL Films, wrote a McCarthy scouting report for the 33rdTeam website in April 2024 that included the following: 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.
Cosell’s analysis of McCarthy was published right around the time the Vikings took McCarthy with the 10th pick in the first round of the draft. This was nearly two months after McCarthy registered a time of 61 miles per hour on a throw at the NFL Scouting Combine — the second-highest among the quarterbacks in Indianapolis.
McCarthy provided a sly grin when asked about where the knock on his arm strength started. “I would say a lot of it just comes with the stigma of playing at Michigan and not throwing the ball a lot,” he said Thursday after the Vikings had wrapped up their three-day minicamp. “But at the same time it could be my frame. They don’t see a 6-5, 240 (pound) guy (he’s listed at 6-3, 219) so how can you throw it 61 miles-an-hour at the combine and all that? At the end of the day, it’s going to show up and the people that know, know. I think it’s just the situations I’ve been in and maybe not passing the eye test for some people.”
It’s at this point, that you are thinking this is going to be a full on defense of McCarthy and that he’s about to be anointed as the next John Elway. That’s not the case. But if McCarthy’s arm strength is a non-issue, what led some draftniks to question it in the first place?