The ill-fated JJ McCarthy experiment has ended. The former 10th pick in the draft was traded to the Giants for a 5th round pick. That he turned out to be a bust surprised very few Vikings fans, precisely ZERO of whom were happy about the draft choice in the first place. Nine actually turned out to be worse than Christian Ponder. And Christian Ponder was an equally unpopular first-round draft choice who is the icon of what passes for an unacceptable starting quarterback in Minnesota.
Consider their stats. In addition to being healthier his first two years, Ponder had better stats across the board. McCarthy had a slightly longer pass average, but his TD-INT rate was 0.92 compared to Ponder’s mediocre 1.24.
27 458 774 58.2 4,788 6.3 31 25 72 62 75.7 42.5
10 140 243 57.6 1,632 6.7 11 12 62 27 72.6 35.6
Again, not keeping Sam Darnold was not the problem. Keeping Darnold was untenable for a variety of reasons and it could have worked out well for all the parties concerned. But not keeping Daniel Jones when all they had to do was give him the chance to compete for the starting job, or even just give him the starting job in the first place, was absolutely unconscionable.
It’s a good trade for both teams. The Giants desperately need a backup and at least the Vikings got something out of the mess. And who knows, back in the day there was a young Vikings quarterback who was sent off to New York for a few years and things turned out rather well when he came back to Minnesota.