This J.J. McCarthy different than one Giants passed over in draft

In the aftermath of the Giants’ overtime win Sunday, the interaction “meant the world” to J.J.McCarthy.

But general manager Joe Schoen being “fired up” and telling McCarthy “we believe in you,” as McCarthy recalled, was a bit ironic, too. Two years ago, the Giants had the chance to draft McCarthy at No.6 overall, but they had apparent skepticism about his mental makeup and ability to handle the market, according to The Post’s Paul Schwartz.

In the present, though, Big Blue now believes in McCarthy enough to let him run the offense for a Giants team entering the bye at 4-2-1, sitting atop the NFC East and staring down a legit chance at cracking the postseason tournament.  Get texts from Paul Schwartz with all the latest Giants news and insights, exclusive to Sports+ subscribers.McCarthy aced his first impression with an NFL-record 243 yards across an 11-minute span against the Saints before following that up with the thriller in Houston. “What I would say is when we’re going through the process, the process is so thorough that — or our process I feel like is thorough — that it may not be for today,” Schoen said of what changed.

“Maybe it’s not for this year’s draft, but down the road you may be able to make a move like what we made because of the research we did on J.J. “There’s some people you rule out because they don’t fit, and maybe you wouldn’t trade for that player, but because of the work we had done on J.J.in the predraft process, we felt comfortable with who the kid was, and we liked the film that we saw from Minnesota.” The obvious link to McCarthy runs through the Harbaugh family, with John coaching the Giants and his brother, Jim, the coach of Michigan when McCarthy won a national championship there.

But to get to the Giants in exchange for a fifth-round pick, McCarthy missed the entire 2024 season while injured, then tumbled down the Vikings depth chart. He managed just 1,632 passing yards with 11 to...