tukafan21

I have never once compared T-Mac to Calvin or said he’s the next version of him. The only time I’ve mentioned the two together, was to say I think T-Mac might have the best catch radius of a prospect since Calvin, and that very well could be accurate, but that’s the closest I’ve ever come to comparing them.

And that's another reason I like drafting T-Mac so much, as if we add him to the OL and running game we had this past year, Bryce has no more excuses, it's sink or swim time and we'll be able to find out if he can be the guy. If he is, awesome, we have our QB, but if he isn't, at least we have a full offensive roster built out with a true #1 WR to slot a new QB into, whether it's a vet or a new draft pick.

Yes, I've pointed this out as well, especially in a year where it's mostly defensive prospects with potential, there aren't many who will step in and be impact players on day 1. Graham or Campbell might be the only two players we'd have a shot at who would be better Week 1 than whoever we could sign in FA for those spots. But any edge rusher, shouldn't even be the best new edge on the team next year, as that should be where the majority of our cap room is spent.

Yep Like I said, I've gone to bat for Arizona players, football and basketball, too many times to count, including guys who were high draft picks and didn't pan out. But I've only felt the same way about an Arizona player's professional prospects like I do with T-Mac with one other player, and that was Rob Gronkowski, who only ended up as the best TE of all time. No, I'm obviously not saying T-Mac isn't going to be the best WR of all time, but in a few years, people here are going to either be really happy that I was correct after we drafted him, or will be upset that we didn't get him (whether it's because he went before us or we passed on him) when they realize how right I was on him. I genuinely think his floor is a Top 15 WR in the league for a decade, his very real potential is Top 5 right there next to the Jefferson, Chase, Nabers type of guys, just doing it in a different way than they do, like how Tyreek has been one of those guys for a while but doing it differently than the rest, just opposite of T-Mac's way.

So basically every "expert" out there has him as a Top 10 pick, many of them noting that even though he doesn't have elite speed, he is plenty fast. But random members on here know better than said experts and the only person here who has watched every snap of his college career is showing his bias by pointing these things out? Posted this one the other day, this was part of the little write up in the newest ESPN Top 50 board they posted the other day, "He has the reach and length to win on 50-50 balls, but also has the acceleration to be a yards-after-catch nightmare." So again, tell me why this "draft expert" saying he has "the acceleration to be a YAC nightmare" is wrong about his speed but random huddler's know better?

You also are double and triple teamed on just about every snap as well, which he was, all year long. Which again, if you've actually watched enough full games of his this year (which yes, would include the plays where he's literally taken out of the play by a full on double/triple coverage off the snap), then you'd know saying he was the "1st, 2nd, and 3rd" option was actually a testament to the stats he put up this year, not the reason he did. And that's not even taking into account how much of a mess the team/offense was as a whole with the new coaching staff this year either. Look, I've said this before, if people don't want to take him because they prefer a defensive player, so be it. If you don't want to take him because you'd rather trade back for additional assets, okay that's your prerogative. If you want to overspend to try and sign Higgins to solve our #1 WR problem and thus wouldn't want to draft him, I'd disagree but that's fair. It's when people just talk nonsense about his game when they clearly haven't watched his full body of work that I take issue with and can't go without calling it out. You're implying here that his stats might be inflated because he was the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd option on the team. Well, what about last year when we had another WR who had 90 catches for 850 yards and 13 TDs on the team and was then drafted by the 49ers? When T-Mac also had 90 catches for 1,402 yards, and 10 TDs himself. So are those numbers also inflated, but now because there was another NFL quality WR on the field and thus he got more opportunities to be open? You can't have it both ways, he's put up elite stats in back to back years, once as the only option and once as part of a two headed WR monster, and as I showed you, he didn't do it just beating up on bad teams like XL kinda did. I'm not saying T-Mac should be viewed as any type of prospect based on his stats, but short of having the full tape to his career, knowing how to edit videos together, and willing to spend the time to actually cut up a tape of him only vs ranked opponents, pulling up his stats in those games is the easiest/only way to respond to your moronic statement.

So... a couple of things. First... when you're going to make a comment about a player only doing well against non ranked opponents, maybe you should double check their stats against ranked opponents first, it takes 2 minutes and it would stop you from saying dumb things. Second... when you are then going to respond to it using stats of another player, again, maybe actually look at the stats before using them to prove your point. As you just pulled his season stats from his final season and tried to compare them to T-Mac's stats against only ranked opponents by tying in that it was "in the SEC" as if that little bit masks over the details. As if you took 2 seconds to bother to look at the game logs, you'd see that 15 catches, 335 yards and 3 TDs of those numbers came in 2 games against Jacksonville State and Furman. As also in that season, in his 5 games against ranked opponents, he had 28 catches for 387 yards and 0 TDs... which was heavily buoyed by his 9 catch 178 yard game in one of those games, against UNC, who isn't even in that SEC part of the schedule Meaning he only had 19 catches for 209 yards (and still no TDs of course) in his other 4 games against ranked opponents that season. All of which is trying to base a player's potential off their collegiate stats, which is just insane anyways, but you were the one who wanted to try and say he only performed against non-ranked opponents, so stats were the only way to go to quickly and easily show how much nonsense that statement was.

I'm not going to pretend I have a memorized database of the NFL prospects of the corners he's gone up against in his career, so I can't answer that off the top of my head. But I do know he has two amazing red zone TD catches, one in each of the last two years, one against Hunter last year and one against someone early this year that they said he was supposed to be a borderline 1st round prospect at the time. Again, watch his full reel from this past year, not just the 2 minute highlight clips that are usually showing his crazy contested catches. If you watch one of those 20+ minute long videos that shows his every catch this year, his speed and ability to make defenders miss is quite clear. But as I've noted so many times when people bring up his speed... No, he's not going to ever have the speed/agility of guys like Chase, Jefferson, Nabers, etc, because he's 5 inches taller than those guys, they're entirely different kinds of players, but he has more than enough speed to be a true elite #1 WR in this league. And while he can't do those things, he's able to do things the others aren't, because of his size and elite catch radius.

In 11 games against ranked opponents the last 2 seasons, he had.... 77 catches for 1,022 yards and 6 TDs And for good measure he also had a 21 yard TD Pass in one of those games as well. So, please, tell me more about how he only does well against non ranked opponents

I'd say more like someone who knows they have 3 more months before the draft to put in a "real mock" and they just want to stir people up to drive engagements and more clicks. Unfortunately that's more important to most "journalists" these days than being honest and/or giving their true opinions.

This times a million Bryce doesn't have a rifle for an arm, but what he does do well is place the ball with touch. As much as I hate on Bryce (and I still don't think he's a franchise QB), I think a Bryce/T-Mac combo would be a true elite combo in the red zone, and in particular on those 10-15 yards and throw it high and to his back shoulder routes. Once those two get their timing down, that play would be unstoppable with his size and hands when the ball is placed out there where the defender has no chance at making a play on it.

Yea, figured you meant something like that, but just not sure I've seen someone use the term "decision making" for a WR in a draft analysis before lol. If that's what you want to see though, you'll see A TON of it in his tape from this season in particular. Our OL was straight garbage this year, lot of scrambling by our QB and forcing T-Mac to make adjustments on the fly and find open space in the coverage. Plus he was doubled and tripled on a consistent basis, again forcing him to find ways to get open and find the holes to sit in for his QB to find him. Again, another reason why I think he's such a great fit for Bryce and his game.

He runs a full NFL route tree already, can be used in screen games, quick slants, going across the middle, go routes, basically anything you want. Yes, he needs to get a little quicker off the line at the snap and crisp up his cuts on his routes a tiny bit, but honestly, those are two of the only things he needs to work on, he's such a complete player already. His biggest "flaw" is his lack of top end track speed, but realistically, Bryce doesn't have the arm to properly utilize that type of WR anyways. And once he gets going with his long strides, he has MORE than enough speed to be a true elite #1 WR. I still think our chances of landing him come down to his 40 time. If/when he runs a sub 4.5 like I think he will, I can't see him getting to 8. I'm pretty much to the point of hoping his size and lack of a track background make him slow out of the blocks so he runs a 4.55 and falls to us at 8. Curious what you mean by "decision making" as that's not something you hear about a WR (what kind of decisions are they making out there?) But if it helps.... one of the things that made him so good in college was that his QB was his best friend and have played together since 8th grade. His "find an open space and sit in it for his QB" game is as good as I've ever seen at this level because of that connection, so you know once he gets comfortable with his NFL QB, it's going to be a Mahomes/Kelce type of situation, where they share a brain out there and just know what the other person is doing.

lol In all honesty, the major difference is that Mango and XL were projects, they both had raw physical talents that they still needed to tap into. T-Mac is the exact opposite, he's been productive since the second he stepped onto the field in college, has insane physical tools, and just needs to fine tune a couple specific areas of his game to really take his game to the next level in the NFL, in particular his initial get off at the snap and crisping up his cuts just a tad. He already runs a full and complete NFL route tree, something neither XL or Mango can do even right now. If he just cleans up his cuts on said routes by even just like 33% to give him just an extra half step of separation, it's going to help take his game to a scary level, as his hands are as elite as they come, give him a little more space and he's going to be a future HOFer

haha I love it, all good. And I totally agree, especially for someone like T-Mac since most of his highlight reels are made up of his absurd contested catches. Which sure, they're amazing and love to watch them, but when that's all people see of him, then see his size, it creates this false narrative to them that he's this plodding big WR. It's when you watch the innocuous plays of his from his full tape that you see his complete usage that shows off his versatility and unexpected speed/agility for a player of his size. A quick WR screen where he then makes a man miss and pick up 10 yards after the catch isn't going to make his standard 2 minute highlight reels. But they're the plays that show off his unnatural moving ability for a player of his height.

1 of these things is not like the other, one of these things doesn't belong.

Appreciate the assist, but that was about as sarcastic a post that has ever been made on here, LOL. I've been rather obnoxious on here in my push for us to draft T-Mac for about the last year and a half now, being an Arizona alum and all (as I type this while watching the Arizona basketball game right now haha)

never heard of the guy, but i guess i could be accepting of picking him

A single first round defensive pick won't turn around the defense on their own, to think it will is just foolish, especially if we end up with someone like Carter who is more project than immediate impact anyways. Our best path to improving the defense next year is through Free Agency, not the draft. And again, this was never about using the pick on T-Mac, it was the "another big bodied WR" description, as that's just not who he is. This is from a new big board posted on ESPN today, "He has the reach and length to win on 50-50 balls, but also has the acceleration to be a yards-after-catch nightmare." Hardly the description of "another big bodied WR" as you liked to put it

What?!?! Right now we're looking at having a bottom 5 WR room in the league next year. We have an old but steady slot WR and 2 guys with potential but far from tapping into it. In no world is that good enough for a team with a QB who is a game manager with still tons of question marks. T-Mac is going to be a future Top 5 WR in the league. If you want to argue FOR a defensive player, so be it, can't fault someone for feeling that way, but to think we don't need WRs and that T-Mac wouldn't be a great fit for us, is delusional. You can want a defensive player at 8, that's fair, but to think T-Mac would be a bad pick there is just straight up wrong. None of it is even what my initial reaction to your post was even about, it was considering T-Mac as "another big bodied WR" is just as wrong as anyone could possibly be, regardless of what you think about us taking him at 8.

Might be tough to find Nike Smitty jerseys, I could be wrong, but off the top of my head, I feel like the Nike deal to take over our uniforms started right around Cam's rookie year (maybe actually his 2nd season), which wouldn't leave a ton of time for there to be Nike Smitty jerseys out there to find, I know my Smitty is a Reebok.

lol don't think you're quite getting what I'm saying, because yes, I totally get that sometimes players don't enjoy playing for a great coach, and yea, I'd understand if Belichick was on that side of the list. All those other guys on that list, I can see it, there are known things about all of them that would make us fans get why they're there. I was literally asking WHY McVay was on that side of the list, as I'd never heard anything about him or his coaching style that would make players not want to play for him. Not that I was just saying "hey, he's a great coach, why would anyone not want to play for him?"

100% But those other guys on the unpopular list have histories/stories of things that make people question them as a HC and/or why people wouldn't want to play with them. I'd never heard of anything like that with McVay, which is why I was surprised he was on the list and asking why he'd be on that side of the ledger.