JJ McCarthy Makes NFL History in Giants Debut vs Saints

After riding the bench for weeks after being acquired from the Minnesota Vikings, quarterback J.J. McCarthy finally made his New York Giants debut.

The former top-10 pick played in relief of Jameis Winston in Sunday’s 34-27 loss to the New Orleans Saints — and he nearly led the Giants to a win.

McCarthy completed 11 of 21 passes for 243 yards, a touchdown, and an interception in less than one quarter of work. He entered the game trailing by 24 points and led New York to scoring drives on three of his four series.

In the process, McCarthy also wrote his name in the NFL record books. His 243 passing yards is the most any QB has ever thrown for in an 11-minute span in NFL history.

Giants head coach John Harbaugh was impressed with what he saw from McCarthy, whom he gave a rave review of during his postgame media availability.

“I thought he came in there and did a heck of a job given the circumstances,” Harbaugh said. “Kind of desperation time — it’s different than normal football, and he made some plays, got us back, gave us a chance to win the game, and was throwing the ball into the endzone at the end of the game, so that was good. I’ve got to compliment him on that.”

As for whether or not McCarthy did enough to warrant getting the start next week against the Houston Texans, Harbaugh was noncommittal.

“I can’t answer that now,” Harbaugh stated. “The game just ended 10 minutes ago.”

If there was a time to give McCarthy some playing time, it would be now. Starter Jaxson Dart is out for the rest of the season, and New York already knows what it has in Winston.

In his two seasons with the Giants, Winston was 2-2-1 as the starter, throwing for 1,371 yards, eight touchdowns and five interceptions entering Sunday’s game. During his 12-year NFL career, Winston is a below .500 starter — he has a 38-53-1 record — and his career touchdown-to-interception ratio of 1.38 to 1 is underwhelming, to say the least.

McCarthy, however, is only 23 and showed more flashes of potential in his lone Giants appearance than he did during his 10 appearances with the Vikings.