tukafan21

In before THAT guy shows up

He only has 1 season of real playing time, doesn't have a natural position, is too much of a pass rusher to be a true linebacker but isn't big enough to be a true edge rusher. He's a project, no if's, and's, or but's about it. Just the fact that some people on here view him as a ILB and others as an edge rusher, says a lot about him being a project. If you don't fit into a true position at this point (Hunter aside as that's totally different), you're a project, period. He absolutely could turn into a solid player, but of all the guys we're talking about at 8, he's probably the least likely to make an immediate impact next year, namely because there isn't a natural fit for him yet.

I'm sorry, but this is the dumbest fallacy in this years draft that our fans seem to fall into. There are maybe 3 defensive guys ready to make a serious immediate impact as rookies at the top of this draft, and none of them are likely to be there for us (Carter, Hunter, Graham). And, if any of them do fall to us, it would be Graham, which I just don't love taking a DT at 8 when the best player on our team currently plays the same position. This isn't even a post about taking my guy T-Mac, it's just that people seem to think we're going to improve out defense this year by drafting defensive players, which just isn't going to happen unless we get lucky and hit on those 2-4 round guys that end up exploding as rookies each year and we end up with 2-3 starters from those picks. Defensive rookies take longer to make an impact, and that's before even considering that there just won't be any true blue chip prospects for us to take at 8 anyways. The guys we're looking at, like Walker, are more raw projects who need to be coached up that will make an impact in a couple years than in 2025. If people want to draft defensive players, so be it, but please stop talking about it "fixing the defense" by doing so. You can build up a defense much faster (and better) through free agency than the draft, particularly as that's the side of the ball you find better FA's because teams prioritize locking up their offensive players first, and thus quality defenders hit the FA market every year because of it.

I'm not so sure about that, of all his draft picks, Burns was maybe the only "project" of the bunch. He seemed to take guys who produced in college at a high level over the prospects who may have had only 1 year of production like with Walker.

T-Mac was 5th in the Big 12 in YAC, because he’s also really good at taking screens and short slants for solid gains. And no, we don’t need an over the top guy, because Bryce doesn’t have the type of arm that takes best advantage of that speed. But you know what would pair well with Bryce’s arm strength and talent? An elite deep jump ball guy and someone with glue for hands and an absurd catch radius where a precision touch passer can put the ball where nobody else but him can get to it. If people want to build around Bryce, we should play to his strengths, and that’s giving him a Mike Evans, not a Tyreek Hill. Which isn’t to say we don’t still need speed, we can find speed in a slot guy too, but T-Mac is a great fit with what Bryce does well.

During the Golden part of the video? I'll be honest, I only watched the T-Mac part, but it started off with Palmer saying he's the #1 on almost every board and asked Smitty if he has him #1 as well and he said that he was his #1, but that he might not be the 1st drafted.

Maybe, but he also clearly said that T-Mac is #1 on his board too. Guess maybe I wasn't thinking about that board being the consensus and not his own, so maybe he has Golden #2 and it was his way of saying if a team falls in love with Golden and someone trades up for a QB or TE so T-Mac falls a few picks, that team will take Golden anyways because they fell in love with him and didn't do their homework on T-Mac because they didn't expect him to fall to them. But still, it was just a really weird way to explain it

He'd have been in contention with Odunze to be the 3rd WR taken, definitely would have gone before Brian Thomas Jr (and yes, I know how amazing of a season he had, but he wasn't a can't miss prospect, he had the season MHJ was supposed to have).

Okay, just watched the video now, and I've just gotta say, I love Smitty, but he said one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard in a draft projection. He said T-Mac was the #1 WR on his board, but that he could see a scenario where he wasn't the 1st WR taken, which sure, totally fair thing to say Steve, let's hear your explanation for why.... "If someone moves up to get a QB or TE, I can see Golden moving up to be the #1 guy" Wait... what?!?!?!?! If someone trades up to get a QB or TE, you think that will then cause your 4th ranked WR to be the 1st WR taken in the draft?!?!?! I'm sorry, but that is the most asinine explanation for where players will be drafted ever, I honestly don't understand that logic, at all, and it has nothing to do with my guy. Those names could be John Doe and John Smith, and if he says his 4th ranked WR will be drafted 1st because an extra QB or TE was taken due to a trade, I'd be saying the same thing, lol.

There are generally 3 things that can make a player great, being a superior athlete, having unprecedented work ethic/effort, or being extremely fundamentally sound. The elite players who become that due to their work ethic and/or being a superior athlete, generally end up as poor coaches and/or talent evaluators, because the things that made them great can't be coached or easily seen on tape. I'm not saying Steve is right or wrong on T-Mac or any other player, but he is very similar to Jordan in that their athletic ability and their drive to win is what made them greats, and it's also what makes them struggle at talent evaluation. As others have said, he's been right and wrong before, sometimes badly, so I don't really put much stock into his prospect evaluations one way or the other, Panthers GOAT or not.

And other teams allegedly had him faster than that too, but you already know this too, it just doesn’t fit your narrative of him, so let’s ignore that too.

That was just 3 of the 40 teams, some had him as low as 4.46 https://x.com/_ryanfowler_/status/1901696729491083466?s=46&t=LQU3yEizU6WVOcNoJTNyOw Either way, just as I’ve said all year, he plays with more than enough speed for someone of his size, even the low end of those timings is faster than the plodding big man people on here seem to perceive him as.

He just ran a 4.48 at Arizona’s Pro Day, he’s not trending towards the back half of the first round, stop with that nonsense

Even if that were true (and I don't think it will be), the difference between T-Mac and the guys before him that you're referencing, is that he has hands of glue, all those other big bodied WRs we've had over the years that failed, didn't. So even if he struggles to create much separation, his big body and his hands will let him make plays that those other WRs couldn't. I think that's what people seem to forget when looking at him, that he's not KB, or Funchess, or XL, or whoever. He's a guy who has EVERYTHING, except top end speed and quickness. There are very few WRs who truly have it all, in fact, their names are Calvin Johnson and Randy Moss, pretty much almost everyone else had something they were missing, whether it was size, or speed, or hands, or route running, etc, something wasn't ELITE. Which is why I've said his absolute floor is as about the 25th best WR in the league. Because if he never improves upon his speed/quickness one ounce at the next level (which seems unlikely anyways), he's still going to be a more than useful low end #1 or high end #2. He'll be a red zone threat, a downfield jump ball guy, and someone to make the contested catches in the middle to move the chains. Basically, he's Mike Evans, the guy he's most compared to. Evans isn't some elite separator, he doesn't have burner speed, but all he does is compile stats and score TDs because he's so good at making contested catches. Evans has a little more bulk on him, but T-Mac is a little more athletic, in particular making guys miss and getting more YAC. Which is why I see him as a perennial Top 10 WR and someone who will be challenging to be considered a Top 5 WR in his prime. I just went and looked out of curiosity.... In their full college careers, those 3 guys had... 1,715 yards in 3 seasons for Funchess, 1678 yards in 5 seasons for XL, and 1,506 yards for Benjamin in 2 seasons. T-Mac has 1,402 and 1,319 in each of his last two seasons after 702 as a Freshman for 3,423 yards in 3 years. I think the Panthers fans who are concerned about T-Mac are more afraid of our past with big WRs and just forgetting that T-Mac is just on an entirely other level than any of them were.

Except I still think he ends up turning into a slot WR to extend his career well into his mid 30's. He keeps his body in amazing shape and he's savvy, he could very well turn into a true elite slot WR from 30-35 and be a difference maker on a contending team because of it. It's why I always hated trading him, because I think he'll have that 2nd life in the NFL after his RB days are behind him. He basically would turn into what Deebo has been for them the last few years, except I think he'd do it even better.

We need to stop taking WRs in the 2nd round, think we'd have a much better chance on hitting on a defensive player or maybe a Center in the 2nd. If we're drafting WRs, it should be a high 1st rounder or wait until the 4th to take flyers on the smaller quick twitch types and hope that pans out. Just far too many 2nd round WRs that don't pan out these days, especially when we're drafting them.

I get the TD's and I pointed it out, but like I said, when Burrow had more than double the TD's than Geno had, I think Higgins increased TDs compared to DK was more a product of Burrow and the Bengals offense than because of him vs DK as WRs. When one of their QB's finished 4th in MVP voting despite missing the playoffs and the other was just traded for a late 3rd round pick and replaced by Sam Darnold, I think that's a tough narrative to brush aside to just look at raw stats as well. Again, swap DK and Higgins last year, do you honestly believe DK wouldn't have put up better stats than Higgins did? Contracts and trade compensation aside, I'm taking DK over Higgins 100 out of 100 times, there is no debate about it for me.

Not necessarily, they very well could just be waiting on the players who will get cut in the coming weeks/months as cap casualties and wanting to have the cap room to be able to offer more than other teams (likely our best shot at finding immediate pass rushing help for next year at this point). Also wouldn't be the end of the world to try and roll some cap into next offseason to have more space to go after bigger FA's. That's a better move than signing guys who really won't help much more than whoever else we can get on minimum or rookie deals.

Uh, what now?!?! Just doubling down on nonsensical statements? In 2023 he was 4th in the nation in yards and 9th in receptions, then followed that up in 2024 by being 3rd in Yards and 14th in receptions, not to mention all the absurd highlight reel plays he's made over his career. Was a 2nd Team All P12 as a Sophomore and then Consensus 1st Team All American, 1st Team All Big 12, and Biletnikoff finalist as a Junior. Say you have specific concerns that you feel will limit his upside in the NFL and keep him from being a blue chip player, at least that would be a fair statement/viewpoint to make. But to say he hasn't "proven anything at the college level to think he can produce in the NFL" is just an utterly absurd statement to make. He has a very high floor, even if he's someone you personally don't see being a Top 10 WR in the league (which I honestly think he will be), his floor is still going to be as a Top 25 WR.

No, I'm pointing out the myriad of reasons that I don't think it's even debatable. Higgins is 1 year younger, that's the only thing I'm giving him an advantage over DK in, if that's all he has on his side of the ledger, then I don't see where there is a debate.

Is it though? Even looking at just this past year, DK played 3 more games and had 81 more yards than Higgins had, but he also did it on less catches, with DK averaging 15 yards per catch and Higgins with 12.5. Yes, Higgins had 10 TDs to DK's 5, but I'd say that was far less about the WRs than the QBs, seeing as Burrow had 43 TDs (and only 9 INTs) to Geno's 21 TDs (and 15 INTs). Swap the two of them last year and DK puts up better stats with Burrow as his QB than Higgins did, no doubt about it in my mind. DK has also only missed 3 games in his career, Higgins has missed 5 in each of the last 2 seasons. People here complain about our WR speed (and it's many people's biggest issue with T-Mac in the draft), but Higgins ran a 4.59 40 and DK ran a 4.33. DK has only played one more season than Higgins but he has 1,730 yards and 14 TDs more than Higgins, despite playing with the ghost of Russell Wilson and Geno Smith, while Higgins has had Burrow. To me, there is no debate, DK is a significantly better WR than Higgins. Give him Burrow as his QB during his career and his numbers would dwarf what Higgins has put up.

lol, you know it's just easier to say you know nothing about T-Mac than to spout dumbass stuff like "he won against inferior defenses" But hey, at least you openly tell people you don't know what you're talking about so it's easy to dismiss what you say. In 15 games against ranked teams he had 90 rec, 1,227 yards, and 9 TDs, with 4 of the 15 games during his Freshman year when he only had 205 yards. So he still had over 1k yards in the 11 games against ranked teams his final 2 years. Yes, I know there is a difference between ranked teams and good/bad defenses, but I'm not going to spend the time to look up the defensive ranking of every team he played in his 3 years, this is just quicker and easier, but it's far more evidence against your point than in support of it. All of which is also to just ignore that he was almost never single covered this past season, had horrible QB play, horrible coaching and play calling, with no other offensive weapons to take defensive attention away from him, and he was still 3rd in the nation in yards. Even if it was against inferior competition like you think, he still had EVERYTHING stacked against him and put up elite numbers.

Exactly, if you're giving up both picks and cap room at the same time, it needs to be for a certifiable elite player. Higgins doesn't fit that bill, not by a long shot when you factor in his health problems. Hendrickson on the other hand, while I'm not a fan of giving up both picks/cap at the same time, at least he would make a ridiculous impact on our defense next year. He was a 1st team all pro this past year, had 17.5 sacks each of the last 2 seasons and has 13.5 or more in 4 of his last 5 seasons. If we can get him without giving up our 1st and with a reasonable contract (as in, not re-set the market but maybe just a Top 10 pass rusher contract), then draft T-Mac at 8, it would improve our team SOOOOOOOO much more than trading for Higgins, giving him Top 5 WR money, and then using 8 on an edge rusher who will take a few years to make a serious impact.

And DK is a better WR