tukafan21

Even if that were true (and I don't think it will be), the difference between T-Mac and the guys before him that you're referencing, is that he has hands of glue, all those other big bodied WRs we've had over the years that failed, didn't. So even if he struggles to create much separation, his big body and his hands will let him make plays that those other WRs couldn't. I think that's what people seem to forget when looking at him, that he's not KB, or Funchess, or XL, or whoever. He's a guy who has EVERYTHING, except top end speed and quickness. There are very few WRs who truly have it all, in fact, their names are Calvin Johnson and Randy Moss, pretty much almost everyone else had something they were missing, whether it was size, or speed, or hands, or route running, etc, something wasn't ELITE. Which is why I've said his absolute floor is as about the 25th best WR in the league. Because if he never improves upon his speed/quickness one ounce at the next level (which seems unlikely anyways), he's still going to be a more than useful low end #1 or high end #2. He'll be a red zone threat, a downfield jump ball guy, and someone to make the contested catches in the middle to move the chains. Basically, he's Mike Evans, the guy he's most compared to. Evans isn't some elite separator, he doesn't have burner speed, but all he does is compile stats and score TDs because he's so good at making contested catches. Evans has a little more bulk on him, but T-Mac is a little more athletic, in particular making guys miss and getting more YAC. Which is why I see him as a perennial Top 10 WR and someone who will be challenging to be considered a Top 5 WR in his prime. I just went and looked out of curiosity.... In their full college careers, those 3 guys had... 1,715 yards in 3 seasons for Funchess, 1678 yards in 5 seasons for XL, and 1,506 yards for Benjamin in 2 seasons. T-Mac has 1,402 and 1,319 in each of his last two seasons after 702 as a Freshman for 3,423 yards in 3 years. I think the Panthers fans who are concerned about T-Mac are more afraid of our past with big WRs and just forgetting that T-Mac is just on an entirely other level than any of them were.

Except I still think he ends up turning into a slot WR to extend his career well into his mid 30's. He keeps his body in amazing shape and he's savvy, he could very well turn into a true elite slot WR from 30-35 and be a difference maker on a contending team because of it. It's why I always hated trading him, because I think he'll have that 2nd life in the NFL after his RB days are behind him. He basically would turn into what Deebo has been for them the last few years, except I think he'd do it even better.

We need to stop taking WRs in the 2nd round, think we'd have a much better chance on hitting on a defensive player or maybe a Center in the 2nd. If we're drafting WRs, it should be a high 1st rounder or wait until the 4th to take flyers on the smaller quick twitch types and hope that pans out. Just far too many 2nd round WRs that don't pan out these days, especially when we're drafting them.

I get the TD's and I pointed it out, but like I said, when Burrow had more than double the TD's than Geno had, I think Higgins increased TDs compared to DK was more a product of Burrow and the Bengals offense than because of him vs DK as WRs. When one of their QB's finished 4th in MVP voting despite missing the playoffs and the other was just traded for a late 3rd round pick and replaced by Sam Darnold, I think that's a tough narrative to brush aside to just look at raw stats as well. Again, swap DK and Higgins last year, do you honestly believe DK wouldn't have put up better stats than Higgins did? Contracts and trade compensation aside, I'm taking DK over Higgins 100 out of 100 times, there is no debate about it for me.

Not necessarily, they very well could just be waiting on the players who will get cut in the coming weeks/months as cap casualties and wanting to have the cap room to be able to offer more than other teams (likely our best shot at finding immediate pass rushing help for next year at this point). Also wouldn't be the end of the world to try and roll some cap into next offseason to have more space to go after bigger FA's. That's a better move than signing guys who really won't help much more than whoever else we can get on minimum or rookie deals.

Uh, what now?!?! Just doubling down on nonsensical statements? In 2023 he was 4th in the nation in yards and 9th in receptions, then followed that up in 2024 by being 3rd in Yards and 14th in receptions, not to mention all the absurd highlight reel plays he's made over his career. Was a 2nd Team All P12 as a Sophomore and then Consensus 1st Team All American, 1st Team All Big 12, and Biletnikoff finalist as a Junior. Say you have specific concerns that you feel will limit his upside in the NFL and keep him from being a blue chip player, at least that would be a fair statement/viewpoint to make. But to say he hasn't "proven anything at the college level to think he can produce in the NFL" is just an utterly absurd statement to make. He has a very high floor, even if he's someone you personally don't see being a Top 10 WR in the league (which I honestly think he will be), his floor is still going to be as a Top 25 WR.

No, I'm pointing out the myriad of reasons that I don't think it's even debatable. Higgins is 1 year younger, that's the only thing I'm giving him an advantage over DK in, if that's all he has on his side of the ledger, then I don't see where there is a debate.

Is it though? Even looking at just this past year, DK played 3 more games and had 81 more yards than Higgins had, but he also did it on less catches, with DK averaging 15 yards per catch and Higgins with 12.5. Yes, Higgins had 10 TDs to DK's 5, but I'd say that was far less about the WRs than the QBs, seeing as Burrow had 43 TDs (and only 9 INTs) to Geno's 21 TDs (and 15 INTs). Swap the two of them last year and DK puts up better stats with Burrow as his QB than Higgins did, no doubt about it in my mind. DK has also only missed 3 games in his career, Higgins has missed 5 in each of the last 2 seasons. People here complain about our WR speed (and it's many people's biggest issue with T-Mac in the draft), but Higgins ran a 4.59 40 and DK ran a 4.33. DK has only played one more season than Higgins but he has 1,730 yards and 14 TDs more than Higgins, despite playing with the ghost of Russell Wilson and Geno Smith, while Higgins has had Burrow. To me, there is no debate, DK is a significantly better WR than Higgins. Give him Burrow as his QB during his career and his numbers would dwarf what Higgins has put up.

lol, you know it's just easier to say you know nothing about T-Mac than to spout dumbass stuff like "he won against inferior defenses" But hey, at least you openly tell people you don't know what you're talking about so it's easy to dismiss what you say. In 15 games against ranked teams he had 90 rec, 1,227 yards, and 9 TDs, with 4 of the 15 games during his Freshman year when he only had 205 yards. So he still had over 1k yards in the 11 games against ranked teams his final 2 years. Yes, I know there is a difference between ranked teams and good/bad defenses, but I'm not going to spend the time to look up the defensive ranking of every team he played in his 3 years, this is just quicker and easier, but it's far more evidence against your point than in support of it. All of which is also to just ignore that he was almost never single covered this past season, had horrible QB play, horrible coaching and play calling, with no other offensive weapons to take defensive attention away from him, and he was still 3rd in the nation in yards. Even if it was against inferior competition like you think, he still had EVERYTHING stacked against him and put up elite numbers.

Exactly, if you're giving up both picks and cap room at the same time, it needs to be for a certifiable elite player. Higgins doesn't fit that bill, not by a long shot when you factor in his health problems. Hendrickson on the other hand, while I'm not a fan of giving up both picks/cap at the same time, at least he would make a ridiculous impact on our defense next year. He was a 1st team all pro this past year, had 17.5 sacks each of the last 2 seasons and has 13.5 or more in 4 of his last 5 seasons. If we can get him without giving up our 1st and with a reasonable contract (as in, not re-set the market but maybe just a Top 10 pass rusher contract), then draft T-Mac at 8, it would improve our team SOOOOOOOO much more than trading for Higgins, giving him Top 5 WR money, and then using 8 on an edge rusher who will take a few years to make a serious impact.

And DK is a better WR

My concern is more about the contract we’d have to give Higgins and that I don’t think it’s worth that by itself, let alone also losing our 2nd rounder on top. If a team trades for him, Higgins is getting a Top 5, if not Top 3 WR contract. He’s not worth that

Better be for Hendrickson and not Higgins

Well that would be just nonsense for multiple reasons. First, even if he was available, the picks and money it would cost us would not be close to worth it, not matter how good he is. Second, there is no way in hell the Bengals are trading the best WR in the league who happens to be Burrow's best friend and college teammate, just ridiculous to think they would unless him and Burrow had some falling out.

WAY smarter move Give up the picks and cap room for him while using 8 on T-Mac who is going to be better than Higgins by 2026 anyways.

Absolutely not. I never thought he was going to be worth the cost of the contract we'd have to give him to be able to sign him. Adding in what the Bengals are going to want in return for him and I'm WAY out. I still think he's more of an elite #2 than a #1 and he has trouble staying healthy, just a hard pass for me. It's wild to me that people would be okay with trading for Higgins and giving him a monster contract, but not drafting T-Mac who is a similar type of player but is younger, will be cheaper, and is going to be better than Higgins in short order anyways. People here seem to be afraid of T-Mac's speed, but don't want to look up that Higgins ran a 4.59 himself, even if he plays faster, he's no burner.

Without looking at it and really only going off seeing your post, odds are their projections had something like 3.4 TDs for Bryce and 0.3 for Dalton, which when you round separately go to 3 and 0, but when you combine them, it then gets rounded up to 4.

We better not be, trading for a franchise tagged player almost always ends up being 1st rounder plus more. Under no circumstances is that an acceptable trade to then give a Top 5 contract to someone who is more like a 15th-ish best WR in the league.

I haven't bothered to look into it for 2 reasons, but I'm not so sure his contract would be bonkers for a team that trades for him. Because the new team doesn't pick up the signing bonus portion or the cap hits that come from that, so depending how SF structured the deal, there is always a chance that it's actually not a bad contract for a team to trade for. But the two reasons that doesn't matter is because if SF is actually willing to trade him, to me, that screams they're concerned about his recovery from the injury and would make me not want him based on that alone. And the second is that if his injury recovery is fine, then in the end, they're not going to trade him anyways, so it's all moot to begin with.

We already have him, his name is Adam Thielen. People need to stop thinking about every single player in a vacuum and look at how said player would compliment our existing roster and add something to it. I've been a big fan of Kupp throughout his career, would have loved him in the past, but right now, given his injury issues, age, and already having Thielen, he just makes no sense to go after.

What about signing someone like say Gus Edwards who should be really cheap and would provide a useful role as the guy who gets all our and 1 or less carries since we can't sneak it with Bryce? I think having a vet in that role would be worth the money he costs over a 5th round rookie in that role on the cheap, he'd make a nice compliment to Hubbard.

Might be a weird answer, but I'd have interest if Canales has interest. Basically, if Canales thinks he can use a FB, then yea, I'd 100% be interested as he's still got a lot left in the tank. But if he just doesn't see a big enough role for the position for the offense he wants to run, then it would be a waste of cap space.

If we're signing a WR who won't be a #1, it needs to be one of those fast twitch speed guys, not someone who is basically a duplicate of a player we already have on the squad. It's the same reason I said I'd have been in on a DK trade, but if we did, then we needed to trade XL away afterwards, too similar of players/roles Duplicating players/roles just doesn't make sense on a team with as many holes as we have, poor use of cap room. Kupp doesn't make us a contender, rather build out with players who are 1 year rentals or could be part of our future and still with us 5 years from now, not a 2-3 year oft injured rental. If we sign Kupp, I'd then be wanting us to trade Thielen to a desperate contender for a mid round pick (the problem with that, is that team would likely just want to sign Kupp, and Kupp would likely want to go to them over us anyways).

Mine has never changed, T-Mac no matter what. I also just don't get the love affair with Walker, especially at 8. He's more MLB than Edge right now and he's no Kuechly. He's not going to make an immediate significant pass rush improvement in year 1, if he's going to turn into an elite edge rusher, it's going to take him a few years to bulk up and just play more (he basically only has 1 year of playing time in college). He's a low floor, high ceiling, raw prospect, which I'm not against taking in general, but I'd like them to have more of a true position, or at least, be more of an Edge than a MLB, not the other way around.

oh wow, hadn't seen that, honestly not sure how I'd feel about it. Not a fan of trading for someone who had a bad midseason knee injury, he tore both his ACL and MCL, he might not even be 100% at any point this next season. Which means we'd basically be making a trade for the future for a player who would only be under contract for 3 years after that. I'd rather have overpaid for DK who would have had a bigger immediate impact. Really would come down to what the 49ers would want and how his contract breaks down in the future, if it wouldn't be bad cap hits because the 49ers had to eat the signing bonus, it would make him more attractive to me, but the torn up knee is still going to be in the back of my mind.