Quarterback J.J. McCarthy played a handful of snaps for the Giants in last Sunday’s tie with the Commanders and it sounds like the team is going to keep making plans to sprinkle him into their offensive plans.
McCarthy didn’t make much of an impact — two carries for two yards and two plays wiped out by penalties — in his five snaps, but his ability as a runner is a wrinkle that Jameis Winston does not offer and head coach John Harbaugh said it behooves the Giants to find ways to get something out of every player on the active roster.
“The benefits of it? It’s a change of pace,” Harbaugh said, via a transcript from the team. “What you saw is probably not all we have for him right now. Whether or not he’s out there or not will be determined based on whatever happens. But we’ll see if it’s something that can help us. One thing about it, to me, it’s like, what’s the benefit of not doing everything you can to use all the guys you have? We’re always going to be searching for opportunities to use our players, give them an opportunity to help us win games. I think we’d be negligent if we didn’t try to do that.”
McCarthy has only been with the Giants for a couple of weeks, so there’s a limited menu to choose from at this point and the Commanders didn’t seem thrown by anything that McCarthy did while he was in the game. As that expands, McCarthy’s chances of making a difference offensively should grow as well.
