tukafan21

Since the Giants have Wilson as their starter and Dart has looked good so far, I think we should actually try to trade for Jameis If Bryce were to go down, he wouldn't be good enough to lead us to too many wins and screw up our draft position for a new QB next year. But at the same time, he has the arm to make any throw on the field, and thus he will be able to help keep up the development of our young WR room. Also, if we then suck, a team with Jameis and XL in the same locker room would be content gold, we'd be hilarious off the field at least. Genuinely don't know what their WR depth chart looks like, but maybe a Moore for Jameis trade before cut downs?

If he was truly a 2nd round talent, he'd have been drafted in the 2nd round. Yes, he partially fell because teams didn't want to deal with everything that comes with him, but at the same time, if he really was THAT good of a prospect, there are enough QB needy teams that someone would have taken him in that 2nd round. That he hasn't been able to clearly beat out Flacco, Pickett, and Gabriel also proves that he's really not a 2nd round talent, or he'd already have been named the starter.

Booooooo The team's site says you can do a free week trial of NFL+ to watch the game, but you go there and they don't seem to have a free trial. That sucks, really wanted to watch the starters get their 3 series

I genuinely don't understand why people want a different/better backup than Dalton. Nick Foles was a once in a blue moon thing to happen, 99.99% of the time, if your starting QB goes down, you're not winning the SB. With where this team is at, if Bryce goes down at any point in the season, we'd be better off losing from then on anyways, no matter how the season is going. If we're having a rough season before a Bryce injury, it means he probably wasn't playing great and losing for a higher draft pick to replace Bryce would be best. If we're having a good season before a Bryce injury, it means he's probably playing well and showing he could/should still be our QB of the future. Which again, at that point losing is probably best as you're not going to be a contender with any backup QB. So get a higher draft pick for a better player to help fill the remaining holes in the roster for 2026 when a healthy Bryce then can make us a true contender. THAT is also then where you go and get a better backup, when you have a chance at being a true contender, so if you need a backup to come in for a game or two, they're good enough to help keep you afloat while waiting for your starter to get healthy again. But with where this franchise is at right now, riding or dying with Bryce is the way to go, the best possible backup for him is a vet exactly like Dalton to help him with the off field stuff, not to be a great option if the starter goes down.

Let me set your mind at ease then, T-Mac is that guy you've been wanting, he's going to be a stud Top 10 WR who is in the discussion as a Top 5 guy during his prime. I'll also make this prediction, as a rookie, T-Mac will have more TDs than Pittman has had in any season in his career. He's had 6, 4 twice, 3, and 1 TD in his 5 seasons, I think T-Mac makes a serious push for 10 as a rookie, he's going to be a redzone monster with his size and hands.

It's not an answer to this, but just watched an interview with the guy who kicked the 70 yard FG and he said they changed the rules for the kicking footballs this year. In the past, they'd be given brand new balls a few hours before the game and that was all they had to break them in. Now they get them during the week so they get multiple days to wear them in a bit and it could/should allow for longer and more accurate kicking this year.

Well then it's a good thing we did get one of those elite talents in this draft, haha

Yep, as someone who's favorite team to follow is Arizona Basketball, the Portal and NIL have completely ruined the college game, it's unrecognizable. A player learning from the bench for a year to then get increased minutes the following 3 until they're a fan favorite senior just isn't a thing anymore and it's just depressing. It's getting frustrating to have to root for almost an entirely new team every season, they really need to tweak the Portal so you can't just have unlimited transfers without sitting out anymore. If you fix that to the old system or even just allowing one free transfer, it would go a long way.

Sure, but there are bad takes, and there was how hard I banged that T-Mac drum during the whole season and kept it up all offseason until the draft.

Well it's a good thing his final year was in the Big 12 then I guess

Neither can I, lol A. I'll never be able to show my face around these parts again, haha and B and more importantly... I'll be devastated if he ends up a bust for us. It sucked enough for me when Antoine Cason didn't work out for us, as he was an All American and Thorpe award winner at Arizona when I was there as we were both Freshman the same year, so I loved him. I couldn't imagine if my Arizona GOAT, who I'm so confident in becoming a star, didn't work out after we drafted him. But.... it's okay, because that's just not going to happen, my guy is a beast and is going to challenge Smitty for Panthers GOAT WR, LFG!!!!!!!!!

In many of the cases, it's been an equal split to both for a very specific reason We clearly spent a number of years following the old Al Davis method of drafting and looking for the unicorn athletes and hope we can coach them up to being great NFL players, and it clearly hasn't worked. So it was bad evaluating to fall in love with raw physical ability and then it was bad development to turn them into quality players, all around failure.

Sure, totally get it, I also just have an absurdly high level of confidence in T-Mac, lol. I've said it before, there have been a lot of Arizona football and basketball players that I thought were going to be great pros, all star/pro type of guys. And there have been plenty of them who just did not pan out in the end, in both sports, some drafted very high, like Derrick Williams #2 overall in the NBA draft, who was probably my biggest miss in terms of confidence. But there are only 2 that I've ever had 1 million confidence that they would be true studs and be star players and T-Mac is the 2nd of those, the first was Rob Gronkowski. T-Mac is the only player in either sport since Gronk that gave me the same feeling when watching him, that I'm watching a future top end player in the NFL at his position. And I'd say I was right on the first one, kinda the TE GOAT. So for me it's not if he pans out, it's just if he stays healthy, because on-field wise, he's panning out.

I get that, but given his college production, his actual skill set, and what he's shown in camp, he really just seems like the only way he doesn't at least play to his floor is if he can't stay healthy or he just gets a huge head and stops putting in the effort, the latter of which I don't see happening. So hopefully he stays healthy (knock on wood), but there's unfortunately no way of predicting health, you can really only predict a player not able to stay healthy if they already had problems doing so in college.

True, but even after drafting said WR in the 1st last year, we knew we didn't have a great WR room, particularly as we knew he was more of a project WR than someone who should be able to step into the #1 WR role from day 1 like T-Mac is already doing. Plus, our #1 going into last year was a player many were hoping we'd end up signing to an extension. WR room going into this year vs last year T-Mac >>> Johnson Renfrow >>> ISM Coker >>> Coker XL > XL Horn Jr > Mingo Thielen = Thielen With 4 of them under contract for the next few years and Renfrow a possible re-signing if he finds his old form (unless someone unexpectedly drops a bag at his feet, but I doubt he'll play THAT well for that to happen). So yes, nothing is guaranteed, but again, it would take a really bad season for us to feel the need to draft a WR next year in anything before the 5th round, which at that point would still likely only be a BPA type of situation, not out of need.

Being plagued with depth problems isn't the root cause, it's problems with drafting and it unfortunately takes at least a few years to turn that around. You're really never going to be able to build much depth through Free Agency. It's years of drafting well and having solid players on rookie deals for 4 years, with their years 2-4 being that quality depth who then goes and signs bigger deals elsewhere for a chance at more playing time. And that's where you need years worth of successful drafting, because as they leave for bigger roles/contracts, they are replaced by the next batch of guys you drafted and were waiting a year or two behind the previous batch. I think we've greatly improved our drafting the last couple of years, along with seemingly hitting on some solid UDFA's at the same time. So we're on our way, but it will still take another year or two of quality drafting and coaching up the previous mid to late round picks to really build a quality stable of backup depth.

I know it's only been training camp and one preseason game, but I think T-Mac has already shown his floor to be exactly what I said about him in the pre-draft process. That his floor if he never improves his game, is as one of the best #2 WRs in the NFL, if not even still a low end #1 (i.e. a 25th-ish best WR in the league). I think it's safe to say he's already established himself as our #1, and there are only a small handful of teams in the league where I don't think he'd be their starting #2 WR in Week 1. Bengals (Higgins), Dolphins (Waddle), Eagles (Smith), Bucs (Godwin if healthy), Rams (Adams) are really the only teams where I think he'd be the #3 as a rookie in Week 1. A few others like the Lions (Williams), Bears (Odunze), Seahawks (Kupp), Commanders (Deebo), where he'd be the 2b to start the season, just because they're vets and/or already have a year or two of experience with their team/QB. And even having said that, I think by year 2, he's better than every one of those players (And no, I'm not saying he's already going to be better than a prime version of Adams, just whatever he'll be at 33 next year), and same goes for Kupp, but that's more because it seems like his body might be quitting on him in a way that hasn't happened to Adams (yet).

Well to be fair, Horn not practicing right now to let his stitches heal up from a car accident isn't something that should be concerning. Sure, you don't want him missing practice leading into the season, but it's one that once healed, won't have lingering affects or fear of re-injuring it, it was just bad luck.

If we need to draft another WR next year, something went horribly wrong this year, in one season it went from our worst position group to probably 2nd best after our OL. I have zero fear about T-Mac being a true #1, Coker seems to have shown a ton of improvement and could end up as our #2 all season no matter how improved XL is, if Renfrow stays healthy, I think he re-signs a hometown friendly deal to replace Thielen as the vet slot. Even if XL and Horn Jr. struggle (and I'm not guessing they will), I'm not so sure WR is a need in the draft next year, more likely a position that would be supplemented through a cheaper FA signing.

No, I'm saying your preference is just wrong. I get your wanting of us taking a shot, but I'm just saying the pass they did call was the more prudent call to make in game 1 for them. It's not about Bryce spending the preseason on what he does well, it's about Bryce and T-Mac getting their timing down ASAP, and taking a deep shot isn't going to help that, but the play they did make, 100% will. That's not a preference, that's just the way it is, it's so much more important for them to get that timing down than to practice something they're not as good at, they can do that at practice all day if they want, game timing is something you can only replicate in a game.

I think it depends on your definition of "better" for the deep catches vs the crossers or slot plays he made in college. Because yes, he was probably more effective on them as it got him more open and he could catch the ball in stride to get YAC, just the nature of those routes. But the types of plays he makes down the field are ones that there are only a small handful of players in this league that can make them on a regular basis.

No, the point your missing is that getting that timing down on the route/pass they're going to be running much more frequently, is more important in game 1 than taking the shot downfield because they're not as good at that one. It's better for them to be excellent at one thing and average at another than to be slightly above average at both. Because when push comes to shove, you're going to call the plays that you do excellent, not the ones you do at an above average execution. I'm not saying never take the shot in the preseason, but the first chance you get for the two of them to get a real in game situation, it's much more prudent to work on the route/pass that will be used more frequently this year. And it's not like we're talking about a 10 yard button hook route here either, it was a 30 yard lofted over the head back shoulder catch, that ain't easy. If they get that route down, it's near indefensible when T-Mac gets 1 on 1 coverage, no matter who the defender is on him. That's a ball the CB can't break up and it comes down to T-Mac making the catch, which he does far more often than not.

Honestly, after actually seeing it now, my best guess is it's more of just a personal superstition for that kicker and how he places the ball on the tee. Because really, with how he has it aligned, he's not kicking the laces anyways. So it might look odd, but really it's no different than if the laces were more directly outward.

Can't say I've ever paid any attention to the laces on kick offs before, but if I had to guess, I'd say it's a new strategy based on the new kick off rules because popping it up into the air with some wobble to it is probably the most effective kick off style these days.