tukafan21

Well, to be fair, not sure I ever actually even predicted we'd take him, just that we should because he'd be a stud at a position we haven't been able to fill properly since we lost Smitty (and kinda DJ), which he's clearly proving me to be correct about.

When I saw the thread just now and saw the date of the first post, I said to myself, “oh nice, can’t wait to see what I said in here” and then was shocked to not see a post from me in there, lol

He also won the HS version of this award in 2021 as well. And clearly I must have never seen this thread at the time or else I obviously would have posted in it, LOL

Yup, watch the second play of this clip… His college QB knew this, if you get an offsides free play, you have to throw it up to T-Mac no matter what, every single time.

I loved how all the Bryce defenders kept pointing to us hanging right there with the Chiefs and Eagles as the proof that Bryce turned the corner. But completely dismissed when people would point out that there was a 99.99% chance that both those teams just looked past us those weeks and didn't take the game as seriously as they should have. It's like they didn't realize that happens ALL THE TIME in all professional sports. The best teams in the league often are in close games with the worst teams in the league because they mentally took the week off. Sure, sometimes they still beat the poo out of them too, but when those games are close, 99 times out of 100, it's because the better team got lazy, not because the crap team all of a sudden turned a corner.

Yea, the difference though is that Georgia is a football powerhouse with tons of great players over the years, Arizona, is, well, not. lol Plus, like you said, we've had a bunch of them over the years. T-Mac is the best offensive player in Arizona's history (and a real argument to be made for overall best player, it would be a battle between him and a couple defensive guys). He also was the first Wildcat to ever be drafted by the Panthers (the last team to have never taken one of us). And as far as I'm aware, in the 21 years since I first went out there for school, Antoine Cason is the only other Wildcat we've had on the roster (and yea, I know he didn't work out for us, but dude was an All American and Thorpe winner for Arizona while I was there in school as we were freshman the same year, so yea, I was a big fan of his).

Not sure how accurate this is, will be curious to see the breakdowns from the people who go through the All 22 video. On my Arizona board, a bunch of people who were at the game have been saying even though they're Cardinals fans, they were rooting for T-Mac and were getting frustrated at how often he was running wide open and Bryce was throwing a check down to someone else instead of even looking T-Mac's way. I also saw an article talking about two plays where T-Mac broke loose behind the defense and if Bryce held onto it for another half second he'd have had an open deep ball look, but instead checked it down a hair too early. So sure, maybe they were giving him more attention, but from the sound of it, he was still getting open but Bryce was the one making the decision to look elsewhere.

Some interesting tidbits in this one... https://www.si.com/nfl/panthers/news/panthers-rookie-wr-tetairoa-mcmillan-historic-start He has 129 yards on "downfield passes" through two games, the next most any rookie has this year is 55 yards. Fastest a Panther has reached 100 receiving yards in a game, doing it in his 2nd game, KB and CMC previously were tied having done it in their 3rd games. Most catches by a Panther in their first two games with 11, previously it was Moose and CMC with 9. Most yards by a Panther in their first two games with 168, previously it was KB with 138.

Also.... Biakabutuka is the reason I'm a Panthers fan to begin with and have had this name for 15+ years on here, but part of me feels like I really need to change my name now to TMacFan4 or something, LOL

Stud: WR Tetairoa McMillan In the midst of all the incompetence and mediocrity, there's one shining hope for the future of this franchise. Rookie wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan led the team with six catches and 100 receiving yards. He also had an extremely impressive one-handed catch wiped out becaue he couldn't quite stay in-bounds. McMillan is a bit slower, but there are flashes of some Julio Jones in his game. His route running and YAC ability are both far better than they were advertised coming out of the draft. Or, you know, exactly what anyone who watched enough of his tape would have known. Honestly, our Arizona board could never understand this knock on him in the pre-draft process, because we all knew it wasn't true. And sure, we're fans who watched all his games, but you'd think the experts who supposedly watch all the snaps of these type of prospects would have been seeing it too, it was glaringly obvious to us. Seriously, how many times did I say here that he could run every route needed? How many times did I talk about his surprisingly good run after catch ability for someone his size? How he wasn't a burner, but he was amazingly smooth for a 6'5" WR? As I've said, only 2 players from Arizona, both football and basketball, have I ever felt they were 1 million percent can't miss stars in the pros. T-Mac and Gronkowski, that's it. One is the greatest TE in NFL history, the other is about to take Smitty's mantle as the Panthers WR GOAT when all is said and done.

They really would have been a perfect pairing of WRs as they're both so good, yet complete opposite types of players. But with all our holes on defense, if Ladd showed the same potential had we drafted him, no way they could have justified going WR again, even I might have been against it (okay, we all know that's not true, I'd still haver taken my guy, but I'd at least have admitted it wasn't smart).

The 2nd one of course, but as I've said a bunch of times today already, if we drafted Ladd, we wouldn't have taken another WR in the 1st this year. And sure, Ladd is absurdly better than XL, but T-Mac is going to be that much better than Ladd that it will work out better for us in the long run. Now, some bizzaro universe where we drafted both Ladd and T-Mac, good lord that combo would be crazy, I could probably play QB there and throw for 200+ yards a game.

My fantasy team would not be upset with that, maybe I should start both of them next week

Yea, I started a thread about us needing to draft him on here in November of 2023, or 18 months before he'd even have been draft eligible, lol, and I'm sure I probably brought him up in other threads at some point before then too. Yea, and that's my point, I know I should feel like an unhappy camper right now, but damned if I just can't find those feelings because of how well he's playing. It's more than holding me over right now, I'm still just so fuging happy that he's a Panther that the rest is just white noise.

THIS I kept yelling at how many red zone plays we ran without throwing it his way, just mind boggling to have a weapon like that constantly getting single coverage near the end zone and not throwing it up to him.

Well that's the one good thing about 1st round rookie contracts. Team controls the player for 5 years and you can extend them after the 3rd. We offer him a fair market extension after his 3rd year and he's going to sign it, it's too much money to turn down because you're unhappy with the team. It's a couple years after that where if he's still performing on a crappy team that you run the risk of them asking to be traded.

I know there is still this SNF going on and two MNF games to go, but as of right now going into halftime of the SNF game, T-Mac is...... T-20th in Receptions, 8th in Rec Yards, T-7th in 1st Down Rec, T-3rd in 20+ Yard Rec

In 18 games, XL has only 337 more yards than T-Mac has in 2 games, and on 42 more catches. 42 more catches for T-Mac at his current average would give him another 641 yards.

The team should record the film room session of him loafing it back to the LOS (and then still needing to run to the far side of the formation) at the end of the first half and then post it publicly. He deserves the public shaming for that. Not sure if it was pure laziness or the worst football IQ I've ever seen from any player, let alone a 1st round pick, but either one is inexcusable at this level, just awful.

I assume you mean by taking a new QB, but if so, ONLY if there is a QB truly worth it when we're on the clock. You can't screw up another QB pick by reaching just because you need one. If they're not there, sign a bridge guy for a season and try again the next year, it would suck to delay finding a long term solution, but it's WAY better than taking the wrong guy and delaying it another 3-4 years.

It's much tougher to say what makes a QB elite, because there can be so many definitions of it. But you know what makes a QB unable to be an elite QB? Being 5'10", 190 lbs, and not having a single even average physical trait for an NFL QB. Period.

It all depends on the conversations Canales and Tepper had when they hired him. If Canales said he doesn't think Bryce is that guy, but he'll do everything he can to get him there, but he's only taking the job if Tepper agrees to let him get 1 season post Bryce, then I think he's fine. I also think there is a very real possibility that discussion took place given how Bryce looked his rookie year. If that never happened and Canales told Tepper he believed Bryce could be that guy, then it's not hot in terms of a midseason firing. After cycling through coaches so quickly, Tepper isn't firing Canales mid season again. He's fine until at least Week 15, if things are THAT bad at that point, he might just fire him to get a head start on the official job search being able to start. But he'll get the "full season" just because he can't fire another coach so quickly. In that scenario, I think he's "fired" by week 5 in Tepper's mind.

Don't think that's an exaggeration in the slightest. I always said his floor if he never improved one bit in the NFL, was as the 25th-ish best WR, as that's where I thought he'd come into the league as a rookie. Now wondering if maybe I actually underestimated my guy on that one, he's already a Top 20, maybe borderline Top 15 already. He's the real deal, he's showing the hands, the after catch speed and agility that I said everyone was sleeping on. Can't wait until we start calling proper red zone play calls and he can start showcasing what a beast he is down there on jump balls too.

Honestly, I can't imagine how angry, depressed, frustrated, apathetic, or whatever other adjectives you want to use to describe your feelings right now. I know what it was like after the first few games of the last couple seasons, and it really sucks to know it's a lost season already. But honestly, I'm good. We've been so bad the last however many years, that my Panthers fandom was at an all time low, I barely cared about the team anymore. I hadn't worn a single piece of Panthers gear since early in Bryce's rookie season, I never would talk about them, never looked random stuff up online about them since then either, all of which is very abnormal for me. Not sure if I've mentioned this here before, but I'm an Arizona alum and T-Mac was my favorite Arizona player ever (most sarcastic comment ever made on this board?) Drafting him completely reinvigorated my Panthers fandom, my NFL team drafted my school's GOAT, LFG! I know I'm supposed to feel like we have the last few seasons right now, maybe even worse because it's happening AGAIN. But with T-Mac showing he's the guy I spent almost 2 years on here telling everyone he was and looking like the true #1 stud I knew he'd be in the NFL, I'm just not, I'm kinda already just good with however the season ends up. It's rare to be watching someone in their 2nd NFL game and just already know they are your new favorite player ever, because I'm kinda already there with that too. I have something about the Panthers to root for, no matter how bad we are. If we continue to look like this, we'll be replacing Bryce, someone I never wanted to draft. And if not, it means a miracle happened and Bryce turned into a stud and lead us to a shocking season, which would then be a lot of fun to watch. TLDR... T-Mac is a fuging beast and that's good enough for me.