It’s roster cutdown weekend which means that NFL teams are going to have to whittle their rosters down to 53 by Sunday evening at around 6 p.m. ET and several former Michigan State players are fighting for roster spots.
There are also some prominent former rivals battling for a roster spot, including former Michigan quarterback JJ McCrarthy who has been one of the more polarizing players in the rivalry over the past couple of decades. Michigan fans always propped him up as “one of the best quarterbacks in college football history” and Michigan State fans always felt like he was solid, but not great.
So when he was drafted in the first round of the 2024 NFL Draft by the Minnesota Vikings, Michigan State fans were calling it the reach of the decade and they were called biased.
Well, it looks like Michigan State fans were right.
According to The Athletic’s Alec Lewis, he doesn’t expect McCarthy to make the Vikings’ 53-man roster despite being the franchise’s first-round pick two years ago. That’s not something that you hear too often, but that’s how down people are on the former Michigan quarterback.
Michigan State fans may have been right. They saw McCarthy torch one of the worst Michigan State teams of all time in 2023, 49-0, as he passed for four touchdowns and 287 yards but he was underwhelming the year before with just 167 yards and a score against another bad Spartan team.
Spartan fans have been showing their bias, but they were also right. At least when an opposing player is good (Aidan Hutchinson), Michigan State fans can admit it.
McCarthy is going to land on his feet even if he’s let go, but this is a bad look for the former first-rounder.
Michigan State still has the rivalry’s most successful active NFL QB
With McCarthy struggling early in his NFL career and potentially getting cut for the first time in Year 3, Michigan State still has the most successful pro quarterback in the rivalry.
Kirk Cousins is the starter in Las Vegas ahead of Fernando Medoza and he has almost 45,000 career passing yards in the NFL as well as 298 touchdowns. Not only is Cousins the most successful active NFL quarterback in this rivalry, but he’s the most successful quarterback to play for the Minnesota Vikings in this rivalry.
That’s obviously not the bragging right that Spartan fans are hoping for, but Pat Fitzgerald can fix that on Nov. 7.
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