tukafan21

For starters, there isn't going to be any #1 WR available in Free Agency. Higgins will be the best option and he's going to want way more than we should be paying for a non true elite #1 Wr right now anyways. And second, saying he wouldn't be Top 5 last year is a bit disingenuous. QB's went 1-3 and then no WR was going to be drafted before Harrison with the hype around him (not to mention that neither of the 2 QBs who will go in the Top 5 this year would have been drafted ahead of last year's 6 QB's that went in the 1st). So really there was only 1 possible draft slot for him to go in the Top 5 last year from that standpoint. Even beyond that, no, a Sophomore T-Mac of last year wouldn't have gone ahead of Nabers or Odunze. But this year's T-Mac after another big season and year of getting better 100% would have been in the mix for the 2nd WR to be drafted if in the same class as those guys. If T-Mac played for Ohio State, LSU, Alabama, Georgia, etc, he would be viewed very differently by normal fans. The fact that he played for a bad Arizona team that couldn't make a bowl game makes it hard for a lot of people to understand just how good he is and the bonkers numbers he'd put up if he had an elite QB and team around him. He was the only option on a bad team, worse coaching staff, and nobody else to draw coverage and he still finished 3rd in the nation in yards and had more regular season yards than he did last year (came up 83 yards short of last year, but he also had 160 yards in the bowl game last year). I've said it before, by the time T-Mac needs his 2nd contract, he's going to be universally viewed as a Top 10 WR with many people ranking him in their personal Top 5

T-Mac wouldn't be a developmental rookie, this isn't drafting a raw WR in the late first or early 2nd who needs to work on a lot of things before they can make an impact, but any edge rusher we might draft in the 1st round would be. This isn't a good free agent WR class, there's Higgins and then a big drop off, and even then, Higgins isn't a true elite #1, more of an elite #2 or low end #1. It's much easier to find impact defensive players in free agency these days than on offense, teams make sure to lock up their offensive weapons before the defensive ones.

Maybe it's because Hunter and Colorado is almost all you ever talk about on here anymore, so almost any conversation you have with someone is about him/them. Also if you noticed, my initial post on this wasn't even responding to you, but someone else anyways, but don't let those little details get in the way of your agenda of me against Hunter/You

You can be a Hunter fanboy all you want, but there is no denying there is a lot of logic and sense to my argument for Jeanty winning the award. Take Hunter off Colorado and they're not going to be as good of a team, but they're still going to be solid. Take Jeanty off of Boise State and they're not sniffing the playoffs and are going to be closer to a .500 squad. Voting for Jeanty is not a knock on Hunter If Charles Woodson's Michigan team didn't win the NC and was more of like the 15th ranked team at the end of that season, odds are Peyton or Leaf wins that Heisman and not Woodson. No, Woodson didn't do on offense what Hunter did, but he was a better CB than Hunter

Unfortunately he's going to be right about Hunter winning the Heisman, even though it should be Jeanty. The main thing I can't get past in regards to Hunter winning the Heisman is that Colorado couldn't make get into the Playoffs. No, making the playoffs shouldn't be needed to win the Heisman of course, but in this particular instance, I have a hard way of not factoring it in. Hunter won't win the Heisman because he was the best offensive or defensive player in the nation, he'll win it because he's so good on both sides of the ball. But if he's THAT good and impacts both sides of the ball SO MUCH, shouldn't that have made Colorado a better team? Then add in that Shedeur was also a Heisman contender and will be one of the first 2 QB's to be drafted in the Top 5, and they still couldn't make it into the playoffs, in the first year they extended it out to 12 teams, and something doesn't exactly add up. I know a team is more than 2 players, but if you have 2 Heisman candidates, one who plays both sides of the ball, you really should be making the playoffs. When another player is going to end up with one of the most rushing yards in a season of all time, plus he single handedly carried his team to the playoffs, I just have a hard time not giving him that award. And no Cam.... this isn't an attack on Hunter, I'm clearly saying he's probably going to win the award and what he's doing is amazing, but I'd still have him #2 on my Heisman ballot to Jeanty. If there wasn't a player putting up the numbers he's putting up this year it wouldn't be a discussion, Hunter wins it going away. But when you combine the lack of team success with 2 Heisman candidates and a historically good season for a player who dragged his team into the playoffs, it factors in with my vote.

Yes, winning can breed winning, but 1 or 2 meaningless wins at the end of a lost season isn't going to do that. Winning 4 out of 5-6 games to close out a season is the type of thing you'd need to carry over into the offseason and into the next. I think it's MUCH easier to make an argument that our improved play and winning say 2 more games could significantly hurt our future than if we were to have been playing awful the last few weeks and the rest of the season. If Bryce hadn't shown this improvement the last few weeks, he would be gone in the offseason, traded to the highest bidder and we try to move on. But now that he's shown improvement, he's going to be the week 1 starter next year. If we win another game or two, it also could take us out of the T-Mac/Hunter/Johnson range of player that we'd be looking at in the Top 5 of the draft. What happens if Bryce then doesn't show any more improvement next year, or even worse, reverts back to his rookie season or early this season's play? We'd have lost that elite difference maker at the top of the draft and then wasted another season on Bryce before trying to move on from him in 2026, except without having T-Mac, or Hunter, or Johnson, and instead having more of a raw prospect from that 10-12 spot in the draft who may not become the superstar those other players could be. That's not a far fetched scenario, if anything it's probably more likely to happen than not, as personally, I still don't think Bryce has a snowball's chance in hell at becoming a franchise QB and we're going to be looking to replace him after next year anyways. If you're a true Bryce believer, maybe you look at it differently, but even if you are that true Bryce believer, wouldn't you then want to be in position to give him a true elite weapon in T-Mac? Would you really rather get 1 extra meaningless win this year if it meant not being able to get him that weapon next year? Is that one more win this year going to help Bryce succeed next year more than getting T-Mac would? In the end, I'm playing the odds. And the odds are that our franchise will be better off 5 years from now if we end up in the Top 5 of the draft than if we fall to that 10ish range of the draft.

So don't look at it as hoping your team will lose, look at it as hoping your team can add an elite difference maker in the draft, because that's what you're really hoping for and in reality, that's what you're rooting for. Would people have rather won an extra couple of games back in 2010 at the expense of being in position to draft Cam? Or how about the next year when we got Kuechly? If we won an extra game or two that previous year, we'd have likely missed out on him in that draft too. Again, we're not one or two players away from contending next year. We're not already sitting in that 10ish pick range where there might not be a big difference if we fall back a couple extra picks. If we were those things, then yes, you want the team to win to help them build upon next season. As I said earlier, it's like the Lions of 2 years ago, they were only a couple pieces away from having a really competitive team, they won a bunch of late games to build their momentum and turned that into an NFCCS appearance last year and are now the best team in the NFC. That's not us right now, we're more like the Lions of Campbell's first season where they ended up with the 2nd pick in the draft and took Hutchinson. Once you're sitting in that Top 5 of the draft and still have as many holes as we do, meaningless wins only hurt the franchise overall in the long term. Winning at this point is cutting off our nose to spite our face.

BB is a great football mind and known for being a great defensive game planner. But I honestly don't know if he's the type of coach who is good at building up young players and improving their game, that's not really something NFL HC's tend to be very hands on with, especially coaches at the point in their career as BB is, that's something that position coaches are in charge of doing. BB getting that job would mean the players in that program likely learn more NFL style concepts and will go about their business in a more professional way, but I don't know if they'll become better actual players on the field because of BB.

And the Patriots got Tom Brady at pick 199, why can't we just do the same thing?!?!?! You realize how asinine it is by pointing out the mid round players who ended up as Top 5 players at their position is, right? If every team could turn all their mid round picks into superstars, this would be an entirely different league and nobody would care who they take in the first round, because you're leaving every draft with a handful of new future stars.

LOL, you should be inside my head McGrady was my favorite player for years, have a bunch of his shoes, jersey, all of it. I'm also an Arizona alum who has seen every snap of McMillan's career.................... And I still screw up saying his first name after 3 years of watching him, and I also still can't not hear McGrady in my own head when I say T-Mac. But it's a problem I'd LOVE to deal with for the next 10+ years as well, hahahaha.

Why is this so hard for people to understand? At no point did I say the team should intentionally lose or tank the rest of the season, just that I hope we lose out. No, the players/team aren't trying to lose, they are playing 100% and attempting to win (however if a player is dinged up a bit, having them sit instead of fighting through it to play is the way to go for a number of reasons). But I'm not hoping they win, I want us to show fight, show improvement, but in the end, lose the game because I know it's what is best for the franchise in the long term. There is a grand canyon sized gap between trying to lose and hoping we lose, it's not hard to understand the difference between them. The team, players, coaches, etc, don't try to lose, but as fans, we can hope they lose for the betterment of the franchise's future. I'd rather be happy for the next 10 years because we built a contending team than be happy for 10 minutes by winning our 4th game in a lost season. If that means "rooting against us" to accomplish that goal, I'm comfortable with that because I can see the bigger picture and that's more important to me than the immediate satisfaction. And I put that in quotes because I don't view that as rooting against us. Rooting for us to show fight and improvement but still losing to help the franchise, in my mind, is actually rooting for us. It's just not rooting for this team on the field that particular Sunday, it's rooting for us as a franchise.

Do you realize what it would cost to trade for him? It would cost us at least 2 1st rounders (probably 3 and maybe other picks too) and then one of, if not the biggest, non QB contract in NFL history. As great as it would be to have a player like him, it would hurt us more than it would help because of the cap and lost of draft pick implications, It would essentially be trading away anywhere from 4-6 starters for just him between who we'd draft in the 1st rounds (and have on rookie deals) and sign with that cap space.

So your hatred of the Cowboys is stronger than your love of the Panthers? Being competitive like we have the last few weeks, but still losing the game is 100% the best thing for this franchise long term. A single meaningless win in a lost season isn't going to give the players or staff some newfound confidence that will carry over into next season and help the team, hell, a couple late wins wouldn't have any affect on that at this point. Drafting in the Top 5 vs even say 10th can be a game changer 3 years later. No, not all draft picks are guaranteed to turn into stars, but if you're picking in the Top 5, especially if 2 QB's get overdrafted before you, you're leaving with one of the 2 or 3 best players in the draft class and have a better chance of them turning into a superstar than whoever you're getting 5-7 picks later. I've never understood why people can't see the bigger picture at this point in a season and root against your team because you know that's really what is best for the franchise's long term future. If we were already sitting in that 10-12 range and don't have as many holes in the roster, then yea, you root for the wins to build upon the next season (see the Lions 2 years ago), but that's not the case for us.

The problem is I'm not sure how we do that this offseason I don't want any cap room spent on offense, every available dollar needs to go into upgrading the defense with vets who can step in from day 1 and contribute. Any offensive free agents should be super cheap, such as backup OL or something, not starter money. Also, if we're lucky enough to draft T-Mac with our 1st, it also means we're likely going to need to use the rest of our draft picks on defense as well, at the very minimum, our 2nd rounder would need to be defense. So really 3rd round pick is our best chance at finding a center this offseason, beyond that, not sure we have much of options unless we sacrifice defensive spending, but after spending so much in FA last year on the OL, not sure it makes enough sense to do it again.

Is he even the 4th best player inside the tackle box on offense? Most of the OL and Hubbard have all been playing better than Bryce the last few weeks And it's not to bash his play over that time, it's obviously been better, but better than before doesn't mean he's been playing amazing either, he's been serviceable.

I do think this is an underestimated reason for how we've looked the last few weeks. We got KC coming off their first loss and probably expecting us to be a cake walk and likely had a post-Buffalo hangover all week We also got Philly coming off a win on the road in Baltimore and the week before hosting the Steelers in Philly, talk about your classic trap game scenario. Yes we've improved the last few weeks, but I don't think it's 100% on us, I think some of it has been lack of proper motivation/focus from the other teams.

This game and the Jaguars will combine to go a long way in deciding where we end up drafting. If we lose this game and then lose out, we're picking no worse than 4th with a real shot at moving up higher. If we beat Dallas and then lose out (or lose to Dallas and then have an upset win), then the Jaguars will end up having a serious say in where we draft. As the 3 win Jags still play the 2 win Raiders, 3 win Titans, and 3 win Jets. All of those teams will likely have higher SOS than we will, so even if we get to 4 wins, we'll pick higher than all of those teams if we end up with the same records. Ideal scenario is we lose out, Raiders beat the Jags, nothing else matters and we're at worst picking 3rd. If we win a game, ideal scenario would be Jags beat Raiders and then lose to the Titans and Jets, as then we're still picking 5th at worst if the Browns lose out, if they win one (like a home game against Miami in week 17), we'd still be picking 4th even with a win in these final 4 games.

Because Hunter is going to be a CB at the next level. Or because T-Mac is a better WR than Hunter is. Take your pick

I disagree, he doesn't have the physical tools, his "potential" is severely limited because of that fact. Before these last few weeks he's been so bad that people are confusing serviceable with true franchise QB potential. He was the #1 overall pick and he's looking barely serviceable at the end of his 2nd season, that's not a good thing, he should have been looking like this from game 1 last year.

I love how Bryce looking like a barely serviceable, still below average NFL QB, is making people think he has shown he can be a franchise QB. You don't trade away multiple 1st round picks and your best offensive player for that. I said it before we even drafted him, his max potential was like 20th best QB in the league, too good to ever let walk in free agency but never good enough to actually be elite and lead you to SB contention. That was a year and a half ago before we even drafted him and I still don't think he can be that good, I'd drop it back now to maybe 25th best QB in the league. He might be a serviceable game manager, but he's never going to be an average QB in this league, he just doesn't have the physical traits to be so. He's looking halfway competent and putting up below average numbers, stop trying to pretend he's all of a sudden balling out.

YOU responded to MY post responding to someone else saying we should trade our 2026 1st for DK by saying how Bryce is the future. All I was saying was how no matter what you think about him right now, he hasn't shown near enough to make that trade. YOU inserted yourself into a separate discussion about trading that 1st for a WR. You can't then get upset at me pointing out how my post had nothing to do with Bryce's future in a vacuum but in regards to him not showing enough to trade that future 1st rounder this offseason so we can overpay a WR. You're basically saying that you can jump into the middle of a separate discussion with a completely irrelevant point, but if someone tries to steer it back to the original point, they're talking nonsense. You can just admit you didn't read my post and/or the post I was responding to and you jumped the gun on this one, it's okay, nobody is going to fault you for it.

And I've said we need that fast quick twitch slot guy as well, but if you draft Burden to be that guy, it still screws us over as we'd have a MASSIVE hole on the outside by still not having a true #1. And once you then spent back to back 1st rounders on WR, as well as having Coker, plus all the holes in our defense, you're not splashing in free agency to get an outside #1 or using another 1st rounder the following year to get one. So since you can get those quick twitch slot WRs in the middle rounds or in FA, you don't over draft one at the top of the 1st round just because we need one. And this isn't an argument for T-Mac, it's an argument about building up a complete roster, not forcing picks to fill a need despite it not being the right draft slot to do so.

Again, do you ever even read my posts or just see it's me and jump in there saying anything you want? Someone said to trade our 2026 1st for DK I responded to that saying Bryce hasn't shown near enough to give up our 2026 1st in a QB heavy draft. You jump in there saying Bryce is looking like the future. I respond reiterating that he hasn't shown near enough to trade our 26 1st, since that was my point initially. It's not hard to follow along man, just read.

In no way shape or form has Bryce shown anything near enough of being a franchise QB to trade away our 2026 1st round pick this offseason, that’s just a flat out stupid take.

If we trade our 2026 1st for a WR, then we're the dumbest franchise in the history of sports. Bryce isn't the future, no matter how much some people here want to believe he still has it in him. If we trade our 1st rounder in a QB loaded draft, for the right to give a $30 million contract to a WR, then we deserve all the bad things that happen to us.