Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports
After three seasons as the backup quarterback and one near playoff victory, the Bengals should trade AJ McCarron this offseason.
The Cincinnati Bengals snapped the ball on offense over 1,000 times this season. Only two of them featured quarterback AJ McCarron. The third-year backup handed the ball off twice to Rex Burkhead at the end of a 35-17 loss to the New England Patriots on October 16th.
After being stuck in Andy Dalton‘s shadow for the last three seasons, the time has come for the Bengals to trade McCarron. Even he expects to be dealt elsewhere. After the Bengals’ 27-10 season-ending victory over Baltimore on New Year’s Day, McCarron said his possible goodbyes and claimed, “I want to play. I think I can start in this league.”
Of course, he does. Who wouldn’t? No professional quarterback wants to watch from the sidelines for his entire career unless he’s way passed his prime (looking at you, Charlie Batch).
By now, you all know McCarron’s accolades while attending the University of Alabama. In five years, he won three BCS National Champions (playing in two) and set nearly every school passing record.
He was even featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated in October 2013, an issue that debated if he was one of the greatest college football players ever. It may have jinxed him, though, considering his Crimson Tide had their chances of a three-peat wiped away in a crazy 34-28 loss to Auburn exactly one month later — a game where McCarron threw for three touchdowns.
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He’s Not The Guy
Last season, he kept the Bengals’ offense afloat. After Dalton’s season-ending thumb injury in week 14 (with Cincinnati claiming the number one seed in the AFC at the time), McCarron went 2-1 in the final three games, becoming the first Alabama quarterback to win an NFL game in 29 years and helping the Bengals lock up the division crown and tie a franchise-best 12-4 mark.
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In the playoffs, McCarron completed what should have been one of the most iconic touchdowns in franchise history (right next to Stanford Jennings‘ kickoff return in Super Bowl XXIII and Ken Anderson‘s touchdown pass to Don Bass that sealed a win in the Freezer Bowl and the team’s first trip to the Super Bowl), a go-ahead, 25-yard scoring strike to A.J. Green in the final minutes of an eventual Wild Card loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
When the Red Rifle returned in 2016, McCarron’s spot on the bench warmed up. He watched as the Bengals suffered through their first losing season in half a decade and it should be his final year doing so.
As much as winning has followed McCarron, he’s still head and shoulders below Dalton.
Yes, he won two of his three starts in ’16. However, he didn’t light up any box score with eye-popping numbers. Here’s a look at his game log.
@SF (W 24-14): 15-21, 192 yards, TD
@DEN (L 20-17, OT): 22-35, 200 yards, TD
vs. BAL (W 24-16): 17-27, 160 yards, 2 TD
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The Skinny
Sure, on paper it looks good. As mentioned, he went 2-1, and it’s not easy to be thrust into the top spot and make your first two professional starts across the country like McCarron did. He beat a poor Niners team and had a 14-point lead against the eventual Super Bowl-Champion Broncos at Sports Authority Field, easily one of the toughest spots to play in the conference.
Overall, in three regular-season starts, he completed 54 of 83 passes for 552 yards, four touchdowns, and zero interceptions. His only turnover was a fumble that ended the game against Denver.
He was really just a game-manager. In the same offense that had Dalton drawing MVP nods, McCarron only cracked the 200-yard mark once in three starts.
Even in his collegiate glory years, McCarron only averaged 220.2 yards per game in his three seasons as the starter, where his main duty was handing off to the likes of Trent Richardson, Eddie Lacy, T.J. Yeldon, Derrick Henry, and Kenyan Drake.
Same for the playoffs. Yes, he was closer than Dalton has ever been to breaking the NFL’s longest postseason drought. But, the offense under his command was shutout for three quarters while the defense finally put together a decent postseason game.
The poor statistical games are not used to say he’s a below-average quarterback. He was essentially a rookie at the time. They are just there to show the McCarron-Dalton debaters why Dalton is the better option at the moment.
The Time Is Now
This is one of the few times that Who Dey Nation should agree with the Bengals’ front office. Despite being offered a 2nd and 4th round pick for McCarron prior to the ’16 season by an unnamed team, the Bengals refused and kept him as their backup. If Dalton had gotten hurt again, the coaching staff would have been confident with McCarron coming in with some NFL experience on his resume.
Instead, Dalton stayed healthy for the entire season. Marvin Lewis even called it “his best.” The numbers agree with Lewis, too. Dalton broke 4,000 yards for the second time in his career and fell just 10 completions and 88 yards away from Bengals’ single-season records in those categories. He even threw a career-low eight interceptions, the only QB in franchise history to throw single-digit picks while starting every game. In his last two seasons, he’s only thrown 15 interceptions over 949 pass attempts. That’s 1.6 percent.
The Cast Of Characters
Furthermore, 2016 was with a cast around him that was a shell of itself from a year ago.
Marvin Jones and Mohamed Sanu were gone. Tyler Eifert and A.J Green played in just two full games together. Giovani Bernard tore his ACL and even the durable Jeremy Hill missed his first career game.
Working with receivers he had never thrown to (Brandon LaFell, Tyler Boyd, Alex Erickson, Cody Core) and others with limited experience (C.J. Uzomah, Tyler Kroft, James Wright), Dalton was still steady.
Dalton is under contract until 2020. Although the terms of his deal are not player-friendly (the team can receive cap savings ranging from $10.9 to $17.7 million depending on which offseason he is released leading up to the expiration of his contract), a season like 2016 will keep him in the Queen City for the time being.
The Bengals will be fielding offers for McCarron in the upcoming months. It’s imperative that they strike now. If Dalton is your franchise QB (which all signs point to), keeping trade-bait like McCarron is not necessary. If for some reason they can’t get a deal done and McCarron is on the sidelines again in 2017, he will walk after next season and the Bengals won’t get anything for him.
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Where Will He Land?
What team will take him? Your guess is as good as mine.
It’s unlikely he’d go to a team that is happy with its signal-caller like Seattle, Detroit, or Atlanta (where he would be reunited with Julio Jones, the receiver of his first collegiate touchdown pass), but luckily, there are plenty of teams that would most likely be willing to throw some draft picks to Cincinnati for the 2013 winner of the Maxwell Award.
One of the more obvious (and talked about) destinations is Cleveland. A team led by McCarron’s former coordinator Hue Jackson. The Browns went 1-15 this season and saw three different starters under center. Cleveland owns five picks in the top 65 and even more in the later rounds once the NFL announces the distribution of compensatory picks.
Other teams in the QB market form a lengthy list:
San Francisco 49ers (2-14): Blaine Gabbert (1-4, 59.9 QBR) was benched for Colin Kaepernick, who wasn’t much of an upgrade (1-10, 55.5 QBR). They will be starting from scratch with a new Head Coach and possible a new QB in 2017.
Jacksonville Jaguars (3-13): People were ready to throw Blake Bortles in the Top-10 discussion at one point. That argument fell through the cracks after a pick-six-filled 2016 season.
Chicago Bears (3-13): Ready to move on from Jay Cutler. Matt Barkley threw 14 interceptions in seven games.
Not Done Yet…
New York Jets (5-11): Ryan Fitzpatrick followed his 2015 heroics with an abysmal 2016. Ryan was injured, then benched, on more than one occasion. They are still young at QB, however. Bryce Petty and Christian Hackenberg have room to grow.
Buffalo Bills (7-9): Like the 49ers, changes are a coming. Rex Ryan was fired as HC and the Bills are essentially starting from scratch yet again. After sitting a healthy Tyrod Taylor in week 17 to avoid injury, Buffalo seems done with him as its quarterback, leaving only National Championship inner Cardale Jones on the roster if first-round bust E.J Manuel, a free agent, goes elsewhere.
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All The Rest
Arizona Cardinals (7-8-1): How much time does Carson Palmer have left? He just turned 37 years old in December and his backup, Drew Stanton, isn’t much younger (32). Arizona also has 18 unrestricted free agents set to hit the market. Hello, cap room.
Washington Redskins (8-7-1): First off, Washington would be crazy to let Kirk Cousins go. Finding a capable NFL quarterback is rare, and one would think the Redskins, after going through RGIII, Colt McCoy, John Beck, Donovan McNabb, Rex Grossman, Jason Campbell, Todd Collins, and Mark Brunell since their last playoff win, would understand that.
Denver Broncos (9-7): Unlikely landing spot for McCarron since John Elway spent a first-round pick on Paxton Lynch in 2016. If a free agent goes to Mile High, it’s likely someone with more experience.
Houston Texans (9-7): Brock Osweiler is still guaranteed $16 million in 2017, so he’s staying on the roster. Tom Savage was unable to take advantage of Brock’s benching. Despite beating the Bengals with a sub-par outing, he was hurt in the regular-season finale. Osweiler is back for the playoffs. I guess the Texans will wait and see if Osweiler can turn it on in the postseason.
Who’s Left?
If McCarron is traded, it leaves Jeff Driskel as the new second-stringer. Driskel played four seasons at the University of Florida before transferring and playing one year at Louisiana Tech University. Driskel was drafted in the sixth round by the 49ers. He went 15 for 31 with 132 passing yards, 103 rushing yards, 2 TD, and 2 INT in the preseason before being released.
The Bengals claimed him off waivers on September 4th, one day after releasing Coldwater, OH-native Keith Wenning. The fact that Driskel kept a spot on the 53-man roster all season so no quarterback-hungry team could snag him is another sign Cincinnati plans on cutting ties with McCarron.
As they should.
