After only 10 games under center with the Minnesota Vikings, J.J. McCarthy's tenure with the team is already over. On Monday, the Vikings shipped the No. 10 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft to the New York Giants for a 2027 fifth-round pick.
McCarthy, one of five quarterbacks ever picked in the first round by the Vikings and the only one taken in the top 10, will now join a Giants squad still trying to find its bearings after losing Jaxson Dart for the year to a knee injury. While early indications are that New York plans to continue to roll with Jameis Winston as its starter, it may be only a matter of time before the Giants start looking for ways to jumpstart an offense that hasn't moved the ball effectively since Week 1.
It's a deal reminiscent of the trade that sent Trey Lance, the No. 3 overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, from the 49ers to the Cowboys for a fourth-round pick just before the start of his third season. San Francisco moved forward with Brock Purdy as its starter and Lance made only one start in two years with Dallas before exiting as a free agent.
Will life after McCarthy be smooth for the Vikings, and is there a chance the Giants can make the most of the former top-10 pick? Let's break down the deal for both teams.
Giants
Lance's inability to suddenly find answers in Dallas wasn't surprising a few years ago, and expectations should be similar for McCarthy in New York.
With a list of weapons in Minnesota that included Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison, and T.J. Hockenson, McCarthy threw 11 touchdowns and 12 interceptions in his 10 starts last season. His 57.6 completion percentage and 72.6 passer rating were both dead last among NFL starters in 2025. His career outlook is bleak and New York's lack of depth at receiver probably won't help.
On the other hand, it's a pretty low-risk move for the Giants.
Since losing Dart on the first drive of their Week 2 game against the Rams, the Giants haven't scored a single touchdown with Winston under center. The 12th-year veteran has completed only 51% of his passes and connected on only one throw that traveled more than 20 yards in the air. The only positive Sunday was that New York didn't turn the ball over at all, and that was enough to beat the Titans.
McCarthy may not be the answer, but he's an alternative and there aren't many better ones to consider at this point. The Giants likely made calls about other top backups – like the 49ers' Mac Jones, Cardinals' Gardner Minshew, or Chiefs' Justin Fields – but teams aren't exactly eager to have a thin quarterback room just a few weeks into the season.
It may also be too early to give up hope on McCarthy. A turnaround is unlikely, but he's still just 23 and his stunted development in Minnesota is understandable after he missed all of his rookie year with a knee injury. Those are circumstances no other first-round quarterback in the history of the league has been forced to navigate. Now the former Michigan quarterback, who won a national championship with Jim Harbaugh as his coach, will get to continue his development with John Harbaugh in New York.
If he's even a little better than Winston, it's a win for a Giants squad that is 2-1 despite its rocky start to the year. If he's not, it only cost a fifth-round pick to find out.
Grade: B-
Vikings
Not only did McCarthy lose the Vikings' starting quarterback competition with Kyler Murray last month, he also lost the backup competition to Carson Wentz. In two of Minnesota's first three games of the year, McCarthy was a healthy scratch. So it was easy to see the writing on the wall.
Turning top-10 draft picks into fifth-round picks after only a couple seasons is pretty disastrous work, but there's no time machine for the Vikings to undo the selection. That ship has sailed, and the chance to get any kind of compensation for a third-string quarterback isn't a hard decision.
In addition to the fifth-round pick headed their way, the Vikings also freed up about $4.6 million in salary cap space over the next two seasons. That's not a significant enough sum to change much about their team-building strategies in the offseason, but it's not a negligible total either.
In the long run, the McCarthy era will be remembered in Minnesota as an unmitigated failure, but finding a way to deal him elsewhere after knocking him to third on the depth chart is about as good of an ending as the Vikings could've hoped for.
Grade: A-
Adam Stites is a contributing writer for theScore.
