tukafan21

Show me this video... Because just for poos and giggles, I just went to that game's play by play and searched for T-Mac's catches. And he only had 2 catches in the 1st half, and I know FOR A FACT that Hunter didn't play a single snap in the 2nd half. So flat out, you're incorrect here, no if's, and's or but's about it. Again, I'm not trying to defend a bad game by him, but this all started with you saying he did that vs Hunter, he didn't, I've shown you that, it's a flat out fact, but you still seem to ignore it. And before you go off and say "well then Hunter shut him down even more when he was playing", it doesn't matter to what THIS argument is about. Because even what I just looked up doesn't prove that, because Hunter was in and out of the game even in the first half because of the injury, and even if he played every snap, without watching the game footage to see why T-Mac had the stats he did in that game, it means nothing. AND... even beyond all of that, if you're wanting to judge a player based off a single game, or really, a single half of a game, then you're opinion should be null and void. You want to disregard 3 seasons of elite play for one half of play against one player. You realize that great players battle all the time, and sometimes one wins the matchup and the next time the other does. Even if Hunter completely shut down T-Mac in that game, it doesn't change who T-Mac is as a prospect, it would still be just one game.

Yup, all of this. I love the people who talk about him only being a contested catch guy and just dismiss when I bring up that he was 5th in the Big 12 in YAC, all it does is show they have done nothing more than watch all the highlight clips of his absurd contested catches, but not watch the 20+ minute videos out there of every catch he's made and all the YAC he picks up. And the poor QB play thing is way too overlooked by people, he probably would have had another 200-300 yards and 3-5 more TDs this year with just marginally better QB play. The number of times he was open and would have had a TD with a good pass, but instead, the QB just flat out missed him badly, was far too many to count.

Why? Why is T-Mac's stat line against Colorado in 2024 when Hunter barely played more important? It's not like T-Mac took a step back in 2024, he was still 3rd in the nation in yards, despite having a new coaching staff that was terrible, a massive drop-off in his QB play, and not having other weapons on the offense to take attention away from him. If 2024 is more important, I'd say still finishing up 3rd in the nation in yards despite those things is FAR more impressive on the whole than one bad game against Colorado. AND.... before you go and try and say, "well he racked up 304 yards against a bad UNM team" (as I know people love to try and use that against him)... Take 200 yards off his total that game, so he only had 104 in that game and he still finishes 7th in the nation in yards, despite playing 1 less game than most of those guys as Arizona didn't play in a bowl game this year.

Video of what? Hunter standing on the sideline for the entire 2nd half? Again, I'm not trying to excuse a bad game by T-Mac, it happens to all players. I'm solely responding to your post that he did it vs Hunter, he did not as Hunter came into the game hurt, played sparingly in the first half, and then was sat for the entire 2nd half to not risk further injury. And again, even if I wasn't here to point out this absolutely impossible to contradict FACT, and all you had to go off of was the box scores, how does his 2023 and 2024 box scores in those games not in essence cancel each other out anyways?

He had 9 Rec, 107 Yards, and a TD vs Hunter in 2023 That is a much more accurate statement than yours, because at least Hunter played in that whole game. But neither are even fully accurate statements, to make an actually accurate statement you'd need to go back and watch every play from those games to see how often he was actually matched up with Hunter to know what he actually did against them. Which again, off the top of my head, I don't have the slightest beginning of an answer to that. The only thing I can say for certain is that I know the TD was in 1 on 1 red zone coverage against Hunter.

You're literally lying in THIS post, because that's NOT what you said. You said he did that vs Hunter... which doesn't take a rocket scientist to know what you're really saying is "hunter held him to those stats" Which again, is just flat out incorrect as Hunter barely played in that game. As I've said, he had a bad game, I'm not dismissing that, I'm just pointing out the FACTS that he didn't have those stats "vs Hunter" like YOU said... this isn't that hard to see.

Say something dumb and just untrue, get called out for it, laugh at them as if they're still wrong. You were a debate champion weren't you? Was your go-to rebuttal "well I'm rubber and you're glue, whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you, hahaha GOT EM!" I've said time and time again.... don't like T-Mac the prospect or just don't want to draft him for whatever REAL reasons... but say dumb and just flat out incorrect things about him, and I'm going to call them out. And this one isn't even a debate about if he's fast or good enough to be an elite WR, it's just a flat out incorrect statement about Hunter vs T-Mac in that game, black and white facts.

You realize it's okay to just admit you said something wrong, right? I'm not saying you are forced to come around on drafting T-Mac or even liking him as a prospect. But it's okay to just be like, "you know what, you're right, I didn't know that about that particular game, so my post insinuating that Hunter shut him down there was wrong, but I still don't like him as a prospect and/or drafting him at #8." I could have just responded with the stat line from the previous season when T-Mac had a great game against them/him, but instead I took the time to actually explain why what you said wasn't correct, because no matter how you slice it, that's just the case. Hunter barely played that game, so insinuating that he shut T-Mac down is just flat out incorrect. But you just want to dismiss me as the crazy T-Mac fan, instead of just being like, "my bad, you're right on this one" I'm not even saying T-Mac didn't have a poor game that week, it happens to all players, no big deal. But yea, when people say or imply dumb things that are 100% contrary to realities, I'm going to call them out every time.

So, you make a post that is completely and 100% ignorant of the facts, I point out those FACTS, and you want to say it's just "excuses"? What is the excuse? That Hunter barely played in that game so clearly, he didn't shut T-Mac down? That you pulled out a stat line from a game where Hunter barely played, while I pulled out a stat line from a game where he played the whole game and T-Mac put up great numbers, including a TD in a 1 on 1 coverage by Hunter? And hell, ALLLLLL of that aside, you're basically implying that one bad game, even if it was against the #1 ranked corner in the draft who shut him down (which again, wasn't the case as he barely played) would out weigh the fact that he put up elite stats over the course of his career? Do you not see how crazy that sounds?

See, I'm glad when people say things like this, because it shows they don't have a clue, for multiple reasons, classic case of cherry picking box scores and not anything else. The first and main thing being that Hunter barely played in that game this year, he was already dinged up going into the game and I can't remember if he played in the 2nd quarter of that game off the top of my head, but I know for a fact he didn't play a single snap in the 2nd half. While at the same time, T-Mac also didn't play much in the 2nd half of that game either, because it was out of hand. The 2nd is that box score analysis like this is then ignoring when he put up 9 rec for 107 yards and a TD against Colorado and a healthy Hunter in 2023. And even then, while I'll openly admit I don't know off the top of my head how many of those 9 catches came against Hunter in coverage, I know for a fact that the TD was a red zone TD against Hunter in 1 on 1 coverage against him. And also, all of that aside, none of it really matters because individual box score hunting is pointless without going back and watching every snap from the game. I do remember our offense was an utter mess that game, so there is a very good chance his poor stat line in that game was more on the coaches and QB than anything T-Mac, Hunter, or anyone else on the defense did that game anyways. It's weird that people want to pull out of context game log lines like that, but just want to ignore that over his 3 year career, he put up true elite stats, broke basically all school receiving records, had numerous great games against good teams, etc, etc, etc.

People make those comments about me every time T-Mac comes up in a thread. I'm not above being able to laugh at myself and make a joke at my own expense, if that's "weird" then so be it.

uh oh, looks like HE showed up, glad I was in before then

Exactly Everyone wants speed at WR because we don't have it right now, but just because you want speed, doesn't mean EVERY prospect we look at there needs to be a burner. You can find speed at other places in the draft or FA, but guys with T-Mac's size, hands, and catch radius just don't come around often. Those things make him more of a unicorn than speed would, there is only one Tyreek Hill in the league, the other FAST players aren't quite like him, but there are still far more FAST players in this league than guys like T-Mac. If you need a player like T-Mac to also have track speed, then you're never going to be happy. There's been 2 of those guys in NFL history, Calvin and Moss, so sure, let's poo on T-Mac because he doesn't have the speed of maybe the 2 best WRs of all time. We have Thielen for this season, but there isn't a current WR on the roster who you can pencil in as a guaranteed starter in 2026, passing on a guy like T-Mac when that's our WR room is just insane to me. Sure, we see some potential in XL and Coker, but both are closer to being JAGs than true #1 or even #2 WRs as of right now. T-Mac gives us a #1 for the next decade, I don't understand how people are willing to pass on that because he isn't a track star, particularly when our QB doesn't even have the type of arm to properly and fully take advantage of that type of speed anyways.

So, you just want to add to the controversy with this post as well? Because it's not correct either, as some had him timed as fast as 4.46. There were 40 scouts there apparently, so yea, when they're all hand timing him, it's going to give you a wide range of possible times, but in the end, 40 times don't matter anyways. Running a 4.46 or a 4.58 is basically all the same when his game isn't predicated on speed. He has more than enough speed given all his other attributes he brings, which is all that matters in the end. No, he's not a track star, but his size and hands are both 99th percentile amongst NFL WRs. Which is why I don't get all the fan hand wringing over his speed, because it's just ignoring the things he can do that almost every other WR in the NFL can't do.

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.