The Russell Wilson era seems to be over with the Denver Broncos, and many a 2024 NFL mock draft has head coach Sean Payton taking a quarterback at No. 12. In the latest NFL.com mock, Lance Zierlein has the team taking Michigan signal-caller J.J. McCarthy, whom the draft analyst describes as Drew Brees but with more athleticism.

Latest Broncos Mock Draft Has J.J. McCarthy at No. 12
After paying Sean Payton “in the neighborhood” of $18 million per year, per Peter King in Sports Illustrated, the hope is that the Broncos won’t pick in the top 12 of the NFL draft again in the next decade or so.

With that in mind, the 2024 NFL Draft is the time to take a first-round QB to become the franchise’s Russell Wilson replacement.

NFL.com’s Lance Zierlein thinks this pick will be Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy due to his similarities with the QB Payton won a Super Bowl with, Hall of Famer Drew Brees.

“NFL evaluators have described McCarthy’s processing as ‘elite’ in my conversations with them,” Zierlein writes. “Drew Brees was a great processer, but he didn’t have the same athletic ability that McCarthy offers. This just feels like a Sean Payton pick.”

In addition to having more athleticism than Brees, McCarthy is also significantly bigger, listed at 6-foot-3, 202 pounds. Brees measured at 6 feet, 209 pounds during his playing career, and anyone who watched the signal-caller knows that height is probably generous.

Another big difference is that McCarthy has the pedigree Brees didn’t. While the Hall of Fame QB went to a mid-level Big 10 school in Purdue, was a second-round pick, and ended up on the New Orleans Saints after the San Diego Chargers decided to draft Philip Rivers to replace him, McCarthy is more of a blue blood.

The Chicago-area native ended up at Michigan — the class of the Big 10 — after being ranked as one of the top 22 to 41 recruits and top three pro-style QBs in the country (depending on the recruiting service), according to the Michigan football website. And if he goes No. 12 overall to the Broncos, that will be 20 spots ahead of where Brees went in 2001.

All that said, the things that Brees has that the Michigan passer doesn’t include the second-most passing yards (80,358) and passing touchdowns (572) in NFL history and a Lombardi Trophy he won with the now-Broncos head coach.

Who will be QB4 in the 2024 NFL Draft?
Fresh off a national championship, J.J. McCarthy is in the mix to be the third quarterback off the board in the 2024 NFL Draft.

The first three will almost certainly be USC’s Caleb Williams, North Carolina’s Drake Maye, and LSU’s Jayden Daniels, probably in that order. After that, there is no real consensus as to who will hear their name called as QB4 in April.

Other than McCarthy, Washington’s Michael Penix Jr. and Oregon’s Bo Nix are the other two signal-callers in the mix here, and there is a wide variance of where they could go. In some mocks, at least one of these three is often in the top 15. In others, they don’t go until Round 2 or later.

In Zierlein’s mock draft, McCarthy is the fourth QB to go.

Does that make sense? Sure. McCarthy is a talented player, and maybe more importantly, he doesn’t have some of the red flags that Penix and Nix have.

Both Penix and Nix transferred in their college career, meaning Nix played for five seasons with Auburn and Oregon while Penix played six between Indiana and Washington. Both are 23 years old, with Nix turning 24 on Feb. 25, and Penix on May 8. This could mean that at least some of their success is because they were experienced grown men playing against teenagers the last few seasons.

On the other hand, McCarthy is still solidly college-aged, just turning 21 on Jan. 20. That gives him more upside than either of his QB4 challengers.

Also, both Nix and Penix have injury concerns to varying degrees. Nix remained relatively healthy in college, although he did have ankle surgery that ended his 2021 campaign at Auburn, according to ESPN.

Penix’s injury history is much worse. The QB has torn both his ACLs while at Indiana, and although he’s been healthy the last two seasons at Washington, there are rumors that his medical evaluation at the NFL combine could be so worrisome that teams will take him off their draft boards.