John Kuhn Was Surprised Packers Traded Kyle McCord to Dolphins

The Miami Dolphins’ decision to trade for quarterback Kyle McCord continues to look like much more than simply finding another arm to fill out the quarterback room.

Former Green Bay Packers fullback and Super Bowl champion John Kuhn offered his perspective on the trade during the latest episode of The Tundra, and his comments suggest the Packers may have parted ways with a young quarterback who had legitimately opened some eyes in Green Bay.

Miami acquired McCord from the Packers in exchange for a 2028 sixth-round draft pick shortly before the roster cutdown deadline. McCord now joins another former Packers quarterback, Malik Willis, in Miami.

Kuhn admitted that McCord being traded was one of the moves that caught him somewhat by surprise.

“I didn’t anticipate a trade for Kyle McCord, our third-string quarterback, until I saw it was down there to Jon-Eric Sullivan in Miami,” Kuhn said.

The connection certainly makes sense.

Dolphins general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan spent more than two decades in the Packers organization before coming to Miami, giving him extensive familiarity with Green Bay’s personnel department and the Packers’ player evaluation process.

But Kuhn made it clear that McCord wasn’t simply an expendable camp quarterback who happened to have a connection with Miami’s new front office.

He thought McCord showed legitimate potential.

“In all reality, Kyle McCord was going to be a developmental player for the Packers,” Kuhn said. “I thought he showed great promise. I thought it would have been cool if he stuck around.”

Kuhn added that he was “a little bit surprised” by the trade because he believed McCord “had a camp good enough to stick around.”

That’s noteworthy for the Dolphins.

McCord was one of Green Bay’s preseason standouts, completing 46 of 70 passes for 446 yards with four touchdowns. His biggest performance came in the Packers’ preseason finale against Arizona, when he completed 22 of 35 passes for 226 yards and four touchdowns while leading Green Bay to a 42-38 victory.

Kuhn saw noticeable improvement from McCord as the preseason progressed.

He said McCord showed “some good stuff” in the first preseason game and then continued to build upon it before putting together his best performance in the finale.

“He absolutely developed week in and week out in the preseason,” Kuhn said. “You saw him develop throughout practices.”

Why Did Green Bay Trade McCord?

The problem for McCord wasn’t necessarily his performance.

It was Green Bay’s roster construction.

Jordan Love is firmly established as the Packers’ starting quarterback, while veteran Tyrod Taylor was brought in to serve as the experienced backup.

As Kuhn explained, when Green Bay was constructing its 53-man roster, the Packers had to determine not only which players deserved roster spots, but which players would actually be active on game day.

McCord probably wasn’t going to be one of them.

“He’s not going to wear a jersey this year,” Kuhn said of McCord’s situation in Green Bay. “Most likely Tyrod Taylor is there to break glass in case of emergency.”

That left Green Bay with a difficult decision.

The Packers could carry three quarterbacks and use a valuable roster spot on a developmental player, or they could attempt to get McCord through waivers and onto the practice squad.

Once Miami called offering a draft pick, however, it became obvious that McCord probably wasn’t going to clear waivers.

Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst essentially confirmed that thinking after the trade, explaining that McCord had played so well during the preseason that Green Bay knew getting him through to the practice squad was becoming increasingly unlikely.

So instead of losing him for nothing, the Packers took Miami’s 2028 sixth-round selection.

Kuhn understood the logic, but he still seemed somewhat reluctant to see McCord leave.

“If you can’t get him to the practice squad, you do probably have to make that trade,” Kuhn said.

However, Kuhn also pointed out that Green Bay potentially had other roster-management options that could have allowed the Packers to keep McCord around longer.

That is why the move remained something of a surprise to him.

Miami May Have Found a Developmental Quarterback

For the Dolphins, that’s perhaps the most encouraging takeaway from Kuhn’s comments.

Miami didn’t acquire a quarterback who failed in Green Bay.

They acquired one who played well enough that the Packers faced a legitimate dilemma over how to keep him.

McCord’s performance throughout the summer increased his value to the point where Miami wasn’t willing to wait and hope Green Bay released him. The Dolphins surrendered a future draft pick to guarantee they would get him.

McCord also enters an intriguing situation in Miami.

Willis is Miami’s starting quarterback, but McCord is only 23 years old and has an opportunity to develop behind him. The Dolphins aren’t asking McCord to immediately become their franchise quarterback. They can give him time to learn the offense, work with the coaching staff, and see what he becomes.

That’s essentially the role Kuhn envisioned for McCord had he remained in Green Bay — a developmental quarterback with upside.

Miami now gets the opportunity to do the developing.

There are never guarantees when discussing young quarterbacks, particularly one who has yet to prove himself in a regular-season NFL game.

But McCord’s summer in Green Bay clearly made an impression.

He improved throughout training camp. He performed when given opportunities in preseason games. He finished the preseason with a four-touchdown performance. And according to Kuhn, he showed enough promise that seeing Green Bay trade him away was genuinely surprising.

For a Dolphins organization emphasizing youth and long-term development, that’s exactly the type of quarterback worth taking a chance on.