The Giants acquired J.J. McCarthy from Minnesota for a 2027 fifth-round pick, but his NFL résumé offers more questions than reassurance.

The New York Giants traded a 2027 fifth-round pick to the Minnesota Vikings for quarterback J.J. McCarthy on Monday, a move triggered by the season-ending knee injury to Jaxson Dart. The deal is pending McCarthy passing a physical.

At first glance, the price is modest.

That doesn’t mean the move is comforting.

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McCarthy was the No. 10 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, but his first two NFL seasons have been defined more by injuries and inconsistency than anything resembling franchise-quarterback stability. He missed his entire rookie season, then started 10 games for Minnesota in 2025 and completed 57.6 percent of his passes for 1,632 yards, 11 touchdowns and 12 interceptions with a 72.6 passer rating.

Those aren’t numbers that scream “season saver.”

By 2026, Minnesota had already moved on. Kyler Murray won the starting job, while Carson Wentz moved ahead of McCarthy on the depth chart. McCarthy had not appeared in a regular-season game this year before the trade.

Now he lands with a Giants team already scrambling.

Dart’s knee surgery will keep him out at least through the regular season, while Jameis Winston started Sunday’s win over Tennessee. New York won, but the offense produced only 238 total yards and no touchdowns. Head coach John Harbaugh said afterward that Winston would start again against Arizona.

That makes the McCarthy trade feel less like a bold quarterback acquisition and more like an emergency lottery ticket.

There is upside. McCarthy is still young, athletic and was highly regarded coming out of Michigan. A fifth-round pick isn’t a crippling cost.

But the Giants aren’t acquiring a proven answer.

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They’re acquiring a quarterback another organization had already buried behind two others.

For New York, the hope is that a fresh start unlocks the player Minnesota thought it drafted in the first round.

The concern is that this is exactly what it looks like: a struggling team throwing another quarterback into an unstable situation and hoping something changes.