NFL.com’s Daniel Jeremiah on J.J. McCarthy: ‘He is an acquired taste’

It will be interesting to see what he does in the combine next week! #GoBlue

In recent weeks, Michigan football quarterback J.J. McCarthy has been surging up NFL draft boards, as evidenced with him going from being in a handful of first round mock drafts to suddenly being a lock in the early first round.

Of course, McCarthy could move up or move down depending on what he does next week at the NFL scouting combine, but for now, he’s going as high as No. 8 in one prognostication.

That prediction came courtesy of NFL.com’s draft guru Daniel Jeremiah, who was on a conference call on Thursday discussing the draft. Asked about McCarthy, at first, it didn’t appear that Jeremiah had much to say about the three-year Wolverine.

“I feel like I’ve been watching Michigan for the last two weeks,” Jeremiah said. “With J.J., I have said he is an acquired taste. When I watched him — first of all, you are watching TV, and you are like, gosh, they don’t ask him to do much. They run the ball. They play great defense. He will manage the game and get them through it and make a couple of plays here and there.

But as he continued, he started to get deeper into the nuance and see what Michigan football fans saw for three years.

It’s the arm, the scramble ability, the ability to throw the ball into tight windows, and more. In fact, McCarthy is very similar, in Jeremiah’s eyes, to a quarterback that was also previously coached by Jim Harbaugh (at the NFL level) who was also once the No. 1 overall pick.

”When you dig into the tape and really watch it and watch on third downs where they to throw the ball and they do put the ball in his hands, there’s a lot to like with him,” Jeremiah said. “He has a really, really quick mind. He has a quick release. Just everything he does is real smooth. I wrote in my notes that he never gets bored with completions. Some other guys in his class get in trouble big-play hunting. If you are going to get him check-downs or completions, he is just going to — he is never going to get bored taking those.

“He can rev it up and drive the ball in the seams. He can extend plays, keep his eyes up. I kind of — when I finished up watching him, I was like, gosh, who does he remind me of? There’s some elements of Alex Smith coming out of college where Alex Smith had a similar build, played the game from the shoulders up really well, and was pretty athletic to get out and make some plays. That was my comp there.”

We’ll see what McCarthy does next week and how much he perhaps changes the calculus of the NFL draft should he test out the way many anticipate.