tukafan21

I don't think it was fear of the unknown because he tried to hide the extent of the injuries that made him drop. After the drop, the reports I heard were that teams knew what was wrong with his knee and it was something similar to another athlete from a few years ago (honestly don't remember if it was even a football player). That it was basically one of those things where he should be fine for a while, there isn't a huge concern of immediate injury risk. But what he has going on with his knee is something that is degenerative and there's little chance he'll be able to play more than 5 or so years on it before he won't be able to play anymore. So basically it was teams knowing if they draft him, he's probably going to be only a rookie contract player and even if he's great, you might not be able to get use out of him on a second contract. Which in turn makes the drop make sense, but I'm kinda surprised some contending team didn't take him late in the 1st, hoping he'd put them over the top on a SB run but then not even have to worry about giving him a big contract in 4 years too.

I had long said he was one of the main players I wanted at 8 if T-Mac wasn't there or if we just weren't going to take him even if he was. I genuinely wonder if his agent was working to keep the extent of his knee problems quiet, because it's clear the teams all were much more concerned about how long his knee might hold up than any analyst ever talked about, so us fans would never have had any idea of course.

It's not a good look for him, but I don't put much stock in all this. He's a DT who is a gamer and not a workout warrior to begin with, add in that he probably celebrated a bit too much post-draft and wasn't keeping in his best shape, and it makes sense for him to be out of shape right now. If he still looks like this come training camp, then it's a much bigger red flag to keep an eye on

huh? They mostly eliminated position groups needing to pick certain numbers a few years ago. OL and maybe QB's are the only ones who need to have numbers in a certain range now, everyone else can take whatever number they want except I think the 60's and 70's which are only allowed for linemen. Which then certainly makes it easier for teams to have a handful of numbers retired without causing any issues. So still to me... 1, 59, and 89 should never be worn again and then I like the idea someone else had in the thread where 58 is now a LB only number and needs TD's approval for them to wear, but I'd like to see it become a Panthers tradition for great LB's to wear 58 and pass it along.

Leaning towards just ordering this tonight, but now I have no idea on size. Has anyone bought a bunch of jerseys in the last few years and can convey how the Game vs Limited vs Reebok versions all fit? These are both Mediums... The white one here is a Reebok one from 2010, and was when they had the "+2 length" on the tag and it was the version with the stitched numbers instead of iron on... the blue one is from 2022 and is the F.U.S.E Limited version also with stitched stuff, not the "game jersey" with the ironed on numbers/letters that they have the T-Mac jerseys in. The old one fits me fine, the blue one was always a tad snug on me, particularly in the shoulders I'm leaning going with a Large based on the CMC, but for all I know, that is made with a tighter cut due to the higher "limited" level and the "game" ones they have for T-Mac are cut more like a T-Shirt and thus will fit more like the old white one I have here, not sure. (and yes, I already tried going to a sporting goods store here to hopefully try on a Lions jersey to see, but they don't have any right now)

I have less of an issue with 90 being used since Peppers left on his own and spent almost half his career playing for other teams. He "only" had 81 sacks here before he left for Chicago, and yes I know he came back to add 16 more in those final two years, but he's not a HOFer if you remove his Chicago and GB years. Luke played his entire HOF career here and then retired, Cam and Smitty were cut after long HOF caliber careers here despite neither wanting to leave. And while I know you can use my same argument against Peppers against Smitty, as he wouldn't eventually end up in the HOF (and he will) without his stats from his Baltimore years, again, we forced him out when he didn't want to leave and his stats in those years were the icing on the HOF cake he baked while in Carolina.

These players are making millions upon millions of dollars to play a child's game, more money in a year than most regular joes will see in their lifetime, so I don't feel bad when they get cut because they aren't playing up to the value of their contracts, whether they moved their family or not (and fyi, pretty sure most players don't move their families when they change teams late in their career when they're already bouncing around teams every couple years).

T-Mac is a nickname, Tet is a shortening of Tetairoa. Like you said below... your name is Jonathan, I could see "Jonny" being considered a nickname, but Jon isn't a nickname, it's a shortening of Johnathan, see the difference? And if your mom named you Jonathan for it's biblical significance/meaning, because she was very religious, I think it would be different. T-Mac is Polynesian, so much in their culture has deeper meaning for them, particularly names. So for his mom to feel this way, I highly doubt it's just because she likes the name Tetairoa and not Tet, it's much more likely than not to be because the name itself has a deeper meaning in their culture. Particularly as T-Mac himself has often talked about how much his Polynesian heritage means to himself and his family. And no, I'm not saying all this because of how much he's my guy, if he was just "normal american" and his name was Jonathan and he didn't like fans calling him Jon, I'd probably just say tough poo. It's that he's Polynesian and I know things like names have a much deeper meaning in their culture than they do in ours for the most part. For whatever it's worth, a quick google search.......

Yep It's like when fans complain about needing to pay the rest of a coaches contract when you fire them. That's one I just don't get, if the owner is willing to do it, then who the F cares, as that is his choice and it doesn't affect the team (as long as it's not an owner who will then be a cheapskate on the next coach to save money, which isn't a problem with Tepper). But caring about how we use the limited resources because doing one thing affects the rest of the roster you can build, that's just being a sports fan 101 type of stuff.

Yea, caring about the cap is different than caring about the owner's money. I don't give two shits about Tepper's money and how it's spent. But I do care about our cap space and how we use it because that is directly what affects the team. Those are two very different things, it's not hard to understand that.

You don't think it's disrespectful, but you're also not realizing that his name is not just his name, it has a deeper meaning in their culture, so shortening it to something that doesn't have the same meaning, is disrespectful to them. It's not calling some random white American dude John instead of Jonathan. The name has a deeper meaning in the Polynesian culture, to where if you shorten it, it no longer means the same thing. To him and his family, T-Mac or Nalo is a nickname, "Tet" isn't a nickname, it's changing his name that has a deeper meaning to them. And if that random white dude was named Jonathan for a deeper reason, and him or his family say they feel calling them "John" is disrespectful, then I'd have enough respect of that person to not call them John. Why is that so hard? What is wrong with this country that when someone says, "calling me by X name is disrespectful to me and my family" that our response is, "screw them, I'm going to call you what I want to call you"

Yea, I think the Walker smoke was more because that was the way the "experts" were expecting us to go, so we leaned into it to help hide our interest in not only T-Mac, but whoever or whatever we actually planned to do at #8, because he just never made sense for the scheme we run and what holes we needed to fill in general, let alone with the 8th pick.

That's absolutely true too, but I also don't think they ever truly considered Walker an edge either. Just look at who we took and compare them to Walker from a size standpoint, they couldn't be any more different. If T-Mac was taken before we were on the clock, I still don't think we'd have taken Walker in the end anyways, at least not without a trade back first.

Please, explain it to me then, because nothing I just said is wrong, if you can't see it, that's a you problem. This isn't MLB where teams can spend $50 million or $500 million on their roster. Not having guaranteed contracts doesn't save owners a single penny, it just changes what players would be getting the money as guaranteed contracts would mean it's being paid to cut players or sub-par bench players instead of new ones, but it's still the same amount of money coming out of the owners pockets. The fact that any fan thinks cutting a player saves the owner any money is absurd. Yes, TECHNICALLY a team could only spend the cap floor every year and save maybe $15-20 million a season, but no team does that in the NFL. If they aren't spending their cap in a season, they use it in the next season when they get to roll it over, this isn't baseball where you have cheap owners when it comes to assembling the roster itself. Owners get cheap when it comes to other things, like the coaching or training staff, or amenities provided to the players. And yes, these things can cause better players to not want to sign with that team. But in no world does non guaranteed contracts save the owners money, not even in the slightest.

To everyone who spent the last 4 months screaming to not take T-Mac because what we really needed was a quick twitch slot WR and not a big outside guy........ Did we end up getting both in this draft? I kept saying those wanting that quick shifty slot WR weren't wrong, we did need one, but we also needed that true outside #1, and I explicitly kept saying to take T-Mac in the 1st, then use the next few picks on defense while taking that mid-late round pick on the shifty slot WR as they're easier to find there. T-Mac, XL, Coker, Horn Jr could make for a damn good Top 4 WR room if they pan out, although if they do, we won't be able to keep all 4 of them on a 2nd contract, but those are good problems to have.

I said it a million times leading up to the draft, Walker never made any sense to me. He's a 4-3 OLB who plays mostly off ball but can be used as a situational pass rusher. If you're taking an OLB when you run a 3-4, they need to be more of a full time pass rusher who has the ability to set the edge and also play DE when you switch up to a 4-3 alignment. That's just not Walker, he very well may be a great player in the end, but you don't take a 4-3 OLB at #8 when you run a 3-4, square peg meet round hole.

I think the whole escort thing is a bit out of hand, seems kinda clear to me that it was one of those sugar daddy type of deals that likely just went on for too long and they developed "feelings" for each other and turned it into a weird relationship.

No, the casual fan gets sucked into THIS^^^ kind of thinking, and it's so woefully incorrect that it's almost sad. The first is what I've said numerous times, NOTHING about non guaranteed contracts save the billionaire owners a single penny, because they still have to spend their cap floor, and the only reason teams ever don't spend the full limit, is to then roll it over into the next season to be able to spend more that year. But in the end, owners pay the same amount of money no matter what. The reverse is also the same, that the players in totality make the same amount of money as well, because in your example of Clowney not getting that money this year, it will go to another player, as the cap needs to be spent. And you say how we just cut Clowney after we gave him the 2 year contract, but everyone including Clowney's agent and himself, knew when it was signed, that it was more likely to be a 1 year contract than a 2 with how it was structured. The 2nd year was just to be able to spread out the cap hit and he was always most likely going to end up getting traded or cut. It's why agents and players don't care about the total money in a contract, it's always and only been about the guaranteed money, as the years and overall value are meaningless, always have been, always will be.

Agents will have their 1st round picks hold out until the pay structure of their contract is to their liking, not how much money they'll get or even how much is guaranteed, just the when/how they will get the money over the course of the contract. If they're willing to recommend those players hold our, do you really think they won't do it for 2nd rounders to guarantee them an extra 10% of their entire rookie contract?

I'd always said I didn't want to see 58 worn again, but I'd also never seen this idea brought up before, but now that I have, I freaking love it. TD is the ultimate representation of Keep Pounding, dude's career should have been over after the knee injuries and then he goes on to become a franchise legend. Let's make 58 a LB only number that needs TD's approval for who can wear it and turn it into a LB tradition here, would be really cool and in a way more fitting of what TD meant to the franchise than retiring it.

The funny thing is I was a HUGE T-Mac fan back in the day, he was my favorite player for a long time. Have a few pair of his shoes, his jersey, even made a really cool school around him too. Guess I was just always destined to be a T-Mac fan lol

Yes, for a single person, but this isn't just selling tickets on the trip they put on, you buy the full trip and pay for however many people you're bringing with you up to 18 (I'm sure there's a minimum for 10-12 people too). So even if you get a group of 15 guys together to do it, you could do the trip for less than $150k but without the access to players.

lol no the other way around He’s saying if someone were to buy this package, they’re paying half of what it would cost them to do it on their own. So I’m saying that can’t be the case, as there’s no way the person providing it can make money if it costs them twice the amount to put this on for them, they’re in it to make money, not give a fan experience on the cheap. This isn’t a huge operation that has major discounts due to bulk private flights and 5 star hotels/restaraunts around the country to where they can do this at a cheaper price than it would cost to do on your own. You’re paying more for the access to players and not having to work out the logistics on your own, not less, that’s crazy talk.

If the whole league doesn't do it, it creates more of a problem, because there is no way some other's won't follow suit. Once a handful of teams start to do it, all agents are going to start demanding it and we're going to see more 2nd round holdouts than ever, and they rarely did before this.

Again, it's not about billionaires coughing up their money, guaranteed contracts wouldn't cots a penny more out of the owners pockets as teams have to spend their cap room every season. The only times they don't spend it all, it's to roll it over into the next year to spend more than the cap, so they're still spending the same amount of money in the end. Fully guaranteed contracts for all players wouldn't work in the NFL Not having them actually works to the benefit of both teams and players, as it's how teams manage the cap and it allows players to get to re-negotiate new guaranteed money faster. Plus, with how often those role players get churned through because they show flashes but don't pan out, would really limit how much teams would be willing to spend on them and give more than 1 or 2 year contracts. It would create even more of an unbalanced pay structure to where the stars would make even more of a percentage of the cap than they already do.