The fear among some purple fans—yours truly included—was that a team would move up into the top ten to snipe quarterback J.J. McCarthy before the Vikings could acquire him after it became evident that the Minnesota Vikings were not going to give up a ton to move up in the first round of the 2024 NFL Draft. Newly released NFL footage shows that fear almost came true.
We have a behind-the-scenes look at some conversations between the New York Jets and the Los Angeles Rams that occurred when the Jets were on the clock at #10 overall, in conjunction with the premiere of the new league documentary NFL Draft: The Pick Is In.
The Rams made the Jets an offer for both their first-round pick, at #19 overall, and their second-round pick, at #52, according to the video. After giving it some thought, the head staff of the Jets calls Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and company in Minnesota to make the offer that the Jets finally accepted in order to move up one slot. It seems that the Jets determined that dropping all the way to #19 would be too much to bear.
Now, I’m not positive if McCarthy was the Rams’ intended target in their attempt to move up, but I do know that the Vikings selected him at number ten. After selecting McCarthy as their sixth quarterback in the first ten picks, the Denver Broncos selected Bo Nix at number twelve. The Vikings might have had to settle for Nix or pass on a quarterback in the 2024 NFL Draft if they hadn’t been able to strike that agreement. The next quarterback wasn’t selected until the 170s. That is, if McCarthy was the target of the Rams’ trade up efforts.
I always like getting a behind-the-scenes peek at how the NFL operates, especially when it comes to events like the NFL Draft. We now know how dangerously close the Vikings were to pulling off a stunning upset in the opening round of this season.
