tukafan21

We went to OT against a team that was still alive in the playoff hunt. Winning or losing that game at that point would have zero affect on the culture that is being built right now, just being competitive and taking it to OT accomplished that job. Case and point, we won that game and then just got blown the F out this week. If we couldn't use that to build upon this week, do you really think it's going to have even the smallest affect on the team moving forward into next season? It's why I've said there is a HUGE difference between tanking and losing after a closely battled game. Showing the fight and losing a close OT game would have done the same thing for the culture but not hurt out draft position and ability to trade back with a QB needy team. And no, I don't think it's hyperbole when you're talking about 3 picks later at that point in the draft. If you're talking about 17 to 20, then yea, it's probably the same thing. But not in the Top 5ish of the draft, that's where every draft slot can have massive ramifications down the line. Just because great players were drafted after our pick doesn't mean us picking higher wouldn't have given us a better chance at hitting big on a pick. Going back and looking at the other players drafted later is the cherry picking, because the fact remains that the higher you pick, the better chance you have at getting a difference maker and there is no logical way to say it's not true.

And now that I think about it after my other post in a different thread about how I think NE beats the Bills next week. There is a very real chance that winning last week will end up costing us the #1 pick in the draft. Which means we could have traded back into about the pick we're going to end up having in the end. So that win last week will less be about the draft position it cost us, but more the additional draft picks we would have picked up by trading back to the same spot we'll end up. So that win might have cost us a couple extra future 1st round picks in reality.

I actually think there is a better chance NE wins next week than lose. The Bills are locked into the 2 seed, having absolutely nothing to play for, while the Patriots coaches are coaching for their jobs and so are a lot of players. I think NE wins next week unless the literally purposefully don't try to win and actually call plays that aren't designed to put up points, as I think the Bills will be resting anyone of significance.

Yes the Giants did, but so did we last week. We'd be sitting at #2 right now had we lost last week.

I'm sorry, but this is just absolute utter nonsense In general, the higher you pick, the better chance you have at not screwing up the pick. But your final point about not evaluating well means that's even more true. If you don't evaluate well, the lower you pick, the better chance you have at screwing it up because the more elite players are already off the board. So basically because you don't trust us to draft well, you'd rather win meaningless late season games in a lost season and make it tougher on us to hit on our next draft pick at the same time. That's how poo franchises continue to be poo. Win meaningless games that cost you a chance at true impact players and then draft questionable prospects who might not pan out and compound the issue. "hey guys, we suck at evaluating and drafting, so let's make it harder on us next year by drafting later so we can celebrate a pointless win that we'll forget about in a few days" make it make sense

I was responding to someone talking about Parsons, so I pointed out that using him as an example is horrible because he wasn't an edge rusher as a draft prospect. You responded to that by talking about the Horn pick, I was just re-iterating that my point had nothing to do with us, it was solely about Parsons being an anomaly who changed positions and why he's a bad player to use as an example of a stud being drafted outside the Top 10. So I could say, why do you keep going back to Horn, I'm not talking about Horn at all

I'd rather overpay for a legit pass rusher than overpay for someone like Higgins who we'd need to pay Top 5 WR money to get to even discuss coming here. T-Mac on a rookie deal plus an expensive pass rusher in FA will have a much bigger impact on the team than overpaying for a WR with a lower ceiling than T-Mac and drafting a bit of a project pass rusher.

Sure, and I think it's one of those things that comes down more to need than anything. But personally, I think he'd go ahead of Carter and Graham, and again, I personally rank him over Hunter as well. The Giants and Raiders winning though actually makes it less likely of Johnson falling to 7 anyways. There is a very real chance that neither of them feel these QBs are worth a haul to move up to get them, which if it's the case, it opens up 2 more players to be drafted in the Top 3 that aren't QB's

It has nothing to do with Horn and it has nothing to do with even the Panthers It's a general statement for all teams/fans who like to say, "but Parsons went 12th, blah blah blah" Parsons was a MLB, he was never going Top 5, even sneaking into the Top 10 would have been tough, people thought we were crazy to take Kuechly at 9 since he was a MLB, they just never go that high in the draft. Anyone who points to Parsons draft position compared to the player he is today is completely missing the point, he was NOT a pass rusher coming into the draft, so any talk about his draft position is just flawed, literally even the team that drafted him didn't see him being a pass rusher for them, it took injuries for them to find it. And no, you don't have the same chance at screwing up a higher pick. The higher your pick, the better chance you have at not screwing it up, that's just common sense.

I'd be surprised if he's still there at 7, personally I think he's the top CB in the draft (his size is the differentiator for me when comparing with Hunter)

Jets currently ahead of us by .002 in the SOS I'd love to know what has to happen over the final games this week and next for us to have a worse SOS than them, but that seems like WAY too much work to try and dig into and figure out lol

I don't think there is a blue chip can't miss pass rusher in this draft, even the top pass rushers are more of projects than sure fire guys, more in the mold of a Burns who might take a couple of years of development before they can be great. Even if we don't take T-Mac, I still don't like taking any of these pass rushers around pick 5ish, I'd much rather use our cap room to address the issue, with proven vets who will make more of an immediate impact. Take the stud who will be a true outside #1 WR, something we haven't had since Smitty.

T-Mac and I don't even care about anything else, maybe ever, I've never wanted the Panthers to draft a player more than him.

People need to stop pointing to the Parsons pick as an example of a stud player being drafted outside the Top 10. Parsons the draft prospect is NOT the player Parsons is today. Going into the draft he was a MLB, not an edge rusher. He got thrust into that role as a rookie because of all their injuries and he was so good at it that they changed up their plans for him. Even the Cowboys missed on that projection of him or else they'd have just made him an edge rusher from the start, so people need to stop pointing to him as one example, because in reality, every single team in the league missed on that evaluation of him.

Most NFL divas are extremely hard workers as well, because you can't be a diva if you suck. Being a hard worker, even being a good person, doesn't preclude someone from being a diva and a locker room cancer in the NFL. He's made it VERY well known that he expects to be a full time two way player in the NFL. That's just not happening, and when it doesn't happen, I think he's going to be a locker room problem. Particularly when he's drafted by a bad team at the top of the draft and they very well could struggle on offense. There have been way too many concerning things with him, even just playing for Deion wasn't good for him. His HC has been a surrogate father figure and basically just a buddy of his, that's not happening in the NFL, I think it's going to create problems when he's treated like any other player.

So it's starting to look like we'll be 6th if Miami beats Cleveland today, 5th if Cleveland wins (this is also if we keep the SOS advantage over the Jets who we're tied with, if today's results makes that go the other way, that's another pick we drop). But we'd have been sitting in 2nd if we lost last week. All those people excited about that win last week, are you still feeling all warm and fuzzy about that meaningless win? Is it really going to keep you excited all offseason and into the draft when it might have cost us 4 spots in the draft? If we had the 2nd pick, we'd have been in a perfect spot to trade back to pick up additional picks, something most people want to do. If not, we'd have had our pick of better players at #2 as well. Winning last week hurt our franchise more than it helped, it's really not hard to understand this concept late in the season.

It's one of the many reasons he's not even on my draft board at all, there's just too many red flags with him for him to be worth the risk given the state of our franchise, we can't miss on this pick. I think he's going to have injury issues, but I also think he's going to have massive diva problems, especially if he's not getting the offensive snaps he wants and the team is struggling to put up points.

Because defensive rookies tend to struggle more than offensive ones. Our best chance at bringing in impact defensive players next year is through free agency. Take T-Mac in the 1st to finally solve our #1 WR problem, spend all cap room and the rest of our picks on defense

Think 3rd was a possibility if Giants, Titans, Browns, Raiders all won... but also would come down to SOS as we came into the day tied with the Jets, no idea how that one would shake out with today's results. Problem is the Jags are probably beating the Titans which keeps both of them ahead of us in the order

His WR skills aside, I think he's too small to be a true elite WR in the NFL for a long time. He's had injury issues in each year of school so far, partially because he already has the equivalent of 6 years of college ball on his body due to playing both ways for 3 seasons. I just don't see him lasting in the more physical NFL with his frame, it's a big reason I think CB is his path to NFL success.

I was only saying the Jags beating the Titans hurts us because it doesn't let us jump over either of them in the draft order. The others were just comments about how for weeks it was assumed the Giants/Raiders would each be drafting 1-2 (or maybe one falls to 3rd) and would both take a QB. If they both win today, it just screws up the draft from a general sense of how everyone was expecting it to play out, not from a Panthers standpoint. If the Giants/Raiders both end up outside the Top 5 in the end, it opens up all sorts of possibilities, from big trades to maybe no QB going in the Top 5 at all and teams just draft who they want/need.

It had absolutely nothing to do with tanking as they were already terrible with him in there too. If he got hurt and they had to take on his contract again next season, it hurts their cap, it makes a weird situation for a new QB to come into. So yes, it might have helped them be even worse to play for a pick, but it was 1,000% about the money.

Ugh, Jags winning in the end hurts as their SOS is so much worse than ours that it means we won't jump either them or the Titans today. If the Giants and Raiders both end up winning today though, it screws up the draft SOOOOOOOO much. Giants SOS is real strong, so they'll tumble way down the order and honestly might end up putting the Titans in a position to where they'll take one of the QBs, then the Giants and Raiders would be battling it out to give the best trade offer to someone else to move up in the draft for the other.

There isn't a thing that XL or Coker does better than T-Mac If T-Mac is there and we pass on him because of the WRs we currently have, every person involved in that decision should be immediately fired on the spot. If they pass on him because they like someone else better, that's different, but in no world can any NFL front office look at a WR room of XL, Coker, and 87 year old Thielen on the last year of his contract (if we even bring him back instead of letting him go try to play for a contender) and say, "you know what, we're good enough at WR and don't need to take T-Mac because of it" Everyone is complaining about XL's drops, but sure, let's pass up on a player with some of the best hands I've seen in a college WR in a long long time.

He got cut because it was just the smart decision for the franchise. If he got hurt, his contract next year became guaranteed, which was something they couldn't have. He wasn't going to play again this year, let alone even be active for any games, keeping him around would just be a distraction for everyone and be messy.