AJ McCarron is apparently going to get a really nice contract. He’s going to be an unrestricted free agent, and there are supposedly teams that are very interested in his services. He’ll either be a starter, a bridge quarterback or one of the highest-paid backups in the league, seems to be the consensus.
Why that is, I’m not exactly sure.
When McCarron came out in 2014, he wasn’t a coveted prospect. Playing for dominant college teams, he threw 58 touchdowns versus only 10 interceptions in his final two seasons (27 games) at Alabama, but he didn’t have noteworthy smarts, accuracy or arm talent. McCarron infamously forecasted he would be selected in the back half of the first round, but he ended up lasting until the fifth – chosen after eight other quarterbacks.
McCarron has spent most of the last four years backing up Andy Dalton, and I don’t see that much has changed. He hasn’t done anything that’s convinced me that he’s particularly likely to be anything more than an average backup.
Sometimes with backup quarterbacks, they make a strong case for themselves in the preseason. That path was most famously taken by Matt Hasselbeck. McCarron looked pretty good in the preseason two years ago, but he looked very ordinary last August – decent in the meaningless closer, but only 20 of 36 passes in his first three appearances, with no touchdowns and 2 interceptions.
McCarron hardly played in the regular season, completing only 7 of 14 passes for 66 yards at the tail end of blowout losses against the Bears and Vikings. Hue Jackson supposedly had interest in trading for him, bringing him to Cleveland, but I’m not sure why.
With McCarron, his most significant on-field work came in 2015, when a Dalton injury got him on the field for essentially five games. He came off the bench for almost all of a game against Pittsburgh, and started four more games, including a playoff loss to the Steelers. That was with Hue Jackson as his coordinator.
I didn’t think McCarron was overwhelming that year. He threw 7 TDs in those five games, but he also tossed 3 interceptions and had 4 fumbles (2 lost). He completed 63 percent of his passes, which is average, but he didn’t throw for more than 212 yards in any of the four games he started.
McCarron has won two games as a starter, and they were both against lesser opposition (the 49ers and Ravens both finished 5-11 in 2015).
Maybe there’s something there that I’m missing, but he looks like an average backup to me. Probably will make at least $10 million more this year than I would be willing to pay him.
| McCARRON'S FIVE GAMES IN 2015 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Opp | Result | Pct | Yds | TD | Int |
| Pitt. | L 20-33 | 69% | 280 | 2 | 2 |
| at S.F. | W 24-14 | 71% | 192 | 1 | 0 |
| at Den. | L 17-20 | 63% | 200 | 1 | 0 |
| Balt. | W 24-16 | 63% | 160 | 2 | 0 |
| Pitt. | L 16-18 | 56% | 212 | 1 | 1 |
—Ian Allan