tukafan21

Uh, I've never once said he isn't winning it, that if he does, it would be because of his two way play, not because he's the best player on either side of the bal, because he's not. and honestly, I'd probably give it to Jeanty over Hunter as well. What Hunter is doing is crazy, but he's not playing on either side of the ball near the level that Jeanty is, nobody is, Jeanty is by far the most dominant player on either side of the ball in the nation. If not for Hunter, he'd be running away with the award this year, but in the end, I have a feeling Hunter wins.

Being the best player because you play both ways doesn’t mean jack squat for playing one side of the ball in the NFL. It’s literally the definition of irrelevant unless you actually think he can play both sides of the ball, full time in the NFL, and not have his body completely break down within a few years, and do it at an all pro level. Not all experts have him as the top prospect, in fact, many do not These are all facts you can’t debate, sorry. If you want to talk up Hunter’s NFL prospect, feel free, because he’s a Top 10 draft pick. But stop saying nonsense about winning the Heisman having anything to do with his projections and draft stock, because it literally means nothing, like literally NOTHING. If a scout or front office exec in an NFL team’s draft prep said, “but hey, he won the Heisman so we should rank him better or look at him differently” they would get fired on the spot.

Hunter isn’t winning the award because of his defensive play, it would be because of his two way play. Woodson had 12 catches for 238 yards that year, he won the award for his defensive play, not his two way play. I guarantee he won’t win the Bednarik as the nations best defender, something Woodson won. The point was you made the argument of “winning the college MVP means nothing?” And you’re helping prove my point here, he’s winning it for his two way play, not his play on a single side of the ball. He’s going to play a single side of the ball in the NFL, so no, winning that award means nothing for his NFL projection as he’s not winning it for what he’ll do in the NFL. He’s not the best CB in college, he’s not the best WR in college, so why do you want to draft him over those players who project as better NFL players at those positions?

Maybe as a RB, but I always said that when his RB days are behind him, he’s going to turn into a great slot WR and stick around in the league well into his mid 30’s

Exactly what you just said is my point though, you've seen him "layer it all over the field" He can't drive the ball the way even average NFL QB's are able to do. It limits the routes you can run, it limits the throws he can attempt and make, and it can lead to turnovers if he tries the throw and the defender is easily able to jump it. I'll admit he's been playing better the last few weeks, but it's been against some of the worst pass defenses in the league and he still hasn't even been lighting it up, he's just looked competent. Looking competent this late into the 2nd season of the first overall pick isn't a good thing. We know what he is and what he isn't, get what we can, cut bait, call it a day.

Bryce just doesn't have an NFL arm, everything else aside, that will always limit what a team can be with him as their QB. His max upside if everything goes perfectly for him is like 25th best QB in the league, why continue to hurt the development of the rest of our offensive skill position players with a guy with a noodle arm who is never going to be an even average QB in this league? Trade him for the best offer, whatever it is, and move on from this awful trade/pick. Just of guys who should be playing for more than the next 5 years, he's not going to be better than Mahomes, Allen, Hurts, Herbert, Burrow, Lamar, Love, Tua, Stroud, Purdy, Dak, Kyler, Baker, Lawrence, Williams, Daniels, Nix, Jones. That's 18 better than him right there and it doesn't include Richardson, Darnold, McCarthy, or Penix who could all easily be better than him. It also doesn't include guys like Stafford, Wilson, Cousins, Geno, or Rodgers who are starters but likely not more than 5 years from now. What's the point in hanging onto a player like that with such a low ceiling and a floor so low that hurts the development of the rest of the young players, when we might be able to get a halfway decent trade package for him this offseason?

For us right now this season, Bryce. Who would I want as our QB1 next year? Jameis, 100% without a shadow of a doubt in my mind. I want to see us compete this year and grow, but I still want us to lose out. It's what is best for the future of the franchise, we need to get the best draft pick possible right now. If we win a meaningless game or two, we could fall from picking at worst at #5, probably 3 or 4, to falling all the way back to as low as 12ish. Jameis could get us that extra win or two that Bryce might not. Next year is about building up our players, particularly our young offensive weapons in XL, Coker, Brooks, and Sanders (hopefully T-Mac too). Jameis is a PERFECT QB for a team in that situation. For as weird as he is, he's a pretty good leader, which is needed with such a young team like that. He's also fully capable of making every throw possibly needed and isn't shy to let it rip. Sure he will lose you games with his interceptions and some bad decision making, but he's going to pepper our young players with targets at every level to help them speed up their growth. His blowing of games with bad throws won't hinder the development of our weapons, it will just cost us games. Then depending how the season goes, you either go all in for a long term QB solution or do it for a second season so you have a ready set roster loaded with weapons and just need to slot in a QB. If you do that for 2 years with Jameis to build up those young guys, you'd have XL, Coker, Brooks, Sanders all going into year 4 and hopefully T-Mac going into year 3. Spend the bulk of our cap space and draft picks on defense over those 3 offseasons and that is a SB caliber team right there that just needs a QB. That's when you make an all in trade like the Rams did for Stafford or Jets with Rodgers (albeit don't do it with a 40 year old). Or you give up whatever it costs to move up in the draft to get one of the top QB's in the class. Or you bring in a Free Agent like Russell who would thrive with a weapon set like that and if you've spent the 3 years building up the defense, that team is going to be in the SB discussion from week 1. If you're at a rock bottom place, like we are, this is how you build a SB contender in this league from that position. It's never going to be a quick fix with this many holes, you need to take a look at the long game. It's what the Lions did (albeit thinking Goff was their Jameis before he turned into their real guy) and they're now looking like they could be one of the best teams for a number of years. They built up their offense through the draft and FA from 2020-2023 getting Amon Ra, Jaemo, Gibbs, Laporta, and their whole OL except for 1 vet OT for a few years while their defense struggled. Then they spent a lot of draft capital and cap room on the defensive side of the ball over the last 2 offseasons. Sound familiar? That's basically what we just started doing this past year, so let's see it out. One more offseason of adding an elite offensive weapon (T-Mac) and then spend the rest on defense. Bring in a strong armed QB who might cost us games in the W/L column, but will speed up the development of our weapons, then go all in for the QB with a SB contender built out. I get that fans won't like losing games for a couple more years, but it's how you properly build up a franchise from the bottom.

T-Mac should be the pick if he's there, no matter anyone else on the board, and here's why......... I don't think any of the QB's in this class are can't miss prospects, we're still in a re-build, we can't afford to use a Top 5 pick on a questionable QB prospect, we need a can't miss star with this pick. If there was a blue chip pass rusher available, that would be the way to go, but there isn't, best DL available is likely the DT from Michigan. Johnson and Hunter are both elite CB prospects. But we already have Horn who is probably our best player outside of DB and because of that, I just can't get behind drafting a CB with such a high pick, which is the same reason I can't get behind any DT pick either, because of DB on the roster on a big contract. XL has potential, but even his max potential is likely as a really good #2 or a low end #1, not an elite outside #1. After him, all we have in the WR room is Thielen if he's even back, and Coker, who we all like as a prospect, but if he's your 2nd best WR under the age of 35 and with more than 1 year left on the team, then you have one of the worst WR rooms in the NFL, period. So if it's WR, it's T-Mac vs Hunter (as WR) vs Burden, and then again, it's an easy decision for me. Hunter and Burden are both going to be slot WRs in this league, the same way great WRs like Kupp and Godwin work almost exclusively out of the slot. Passing up on a true outside #1 in T-Mac, something we don't have and are near impossible to find anywhere outside of the draft, to take a player who will be a slot focused WR, just makes no sense from a roster building standpoint. T-Mac is 6'5" and 215 lbs and is anything but a slow plodding big WR, he has wheels (no, he doesn't have track speed, but he's going to run a sub 4.5 40 at the combine) and he has plenty of wiggle in his game post-catch to make defenders miss. He has hands like vice grips covered in glue and a catch radius that we probably haven't seen in the NFL since Calvin Johnson. He already runs a complete NFL route tree at all levels, he's just as good running a deep go route for a jump ball as he is catching a 2 yard slant and making defenders miss to pick up the first down. Don't over think it, you take the guy with legit Top 5 NFL WR talent at a position of serious need, more so than any other position of the available players at the top of the draft. Yes, I've openly admitted that I'm an Arizona alum, but it has zero bias in my feelings on this pick. I wouldn't even tell people that if I wasn't so sure about the player he's going to be at the NFL and why he's such a perfect fit for our needs. If he's gone, there are plenty of other prospects that I like, but I don't think any of them have the potential and the perfect fit for our needs as T-Mac does, my alumni connection or not.

The college MVP as you put it has literally 0% bearing on anything, more Heisman winners end up as nothing in the NFL, or just average players, than they do actual superstars. Just looking at since the turn of the millennium, there's only been 4 players who won it that I think you could say were legit superstars in Burrow, Cam, Lamar, and Henry. After that, the next best players are DeVonta Smith, Kyler, Baker, Bush, and Carson Palmer, with Jameis probably being the next one on the list. DeVonta could move into that superstar level, but 5 out of 24 winners turning into superstars since 2000 is a pretty bad number. So no, winning the Heisman has absolutely ZERO affect on a player's NFL prospects, and if you had to say it leaned one way or the other, based on recent history, it would lean towards being a better college player than NFL player. His on field production means a little bit, because obviously, if you can't produce at all, you're not going to be a highly rated prospect. But once you're putting up great numbers, the difference between a few hundred yards or a handful of TDs, is completely negligible and meaningless when it comes down to grading out prospects for the NFL (for example, T-Mac has more yards, Hunter has more TDs, and Burden has had a down statistical year, but I put zero bearing on any of those 3's actual stats when looking at them as NFL prospects). But that first one you mention, his film, is just a JOKE for you of all people to mention. All you ever talk about is his two way play, his stats, and his Heisman candidacy, NONE of which mean anything. You can't spend months talking about that stuff and then now try to say, "wait, how can you say his film doesn't mean anything?" Film is all that matters, and specifically, how it translates TO THE NEXT LEVEL... NOT... how many stats it helps you accumulate in college, because college stats are always just weird, it's the nature of the game at that level, you can compile stupid stats, but not be an NFL player and you can struggle statistically and end up a superstar in the NFL (again, look at Mahomes' college career, it wasn't all that great until his last year and even then he didn't get any Heisman votes anyways).

Every time Hunter comes up you talk about his college game, his college stats, his Heisman position, etc Not one bit of any of that matters, that's the point.

@CamWhoaaCam You love to reference college stats and Heisman positioning, but you realize that the following player......... 13-16 career W-L record, best season in college was 65% completion, 5k yards, 41 TDs, 10 INTs, 260 yards rushing, 12 rushing TDs, never had a single Heisman vote Is possibly the greatest NFL player of all time While the following player........ 48-7 career W-L record, best season in college was 67% completion, 3.2k yards, 32 TDs, 6 INTs, 900 yards rushing, 23 rushing TDs, and was a Heisman winner, Heisman 3rd place, and Heisman 5th place Is a player who only lasted 3 years in the NFL Right? That first player is Mahomes, the second is The Golden Calf of Bristol. Stop pointing towards college stats and Heisman positioning as arguments for how they project at the NFL level. Sure stats are fun to look at and can give you an idea about a player, but the college game is crazy, stats are very misleading at that level.

Because not having an OL can ruin a young QB faster than not having a WR can And for a defensive HC, protecting his QB and building through the trenches seems like something he might prefer, NE has had one of the worst OL's this year

I still think NE would be more likely to draft an LT or Hunter over T-Mac, as much as he'd be a perfect fit for Jones. They need to protect their QB, and for a defensive first time HC, I'd be surprised if he went QB and then WR with his first two 1st round picks as HC. If he went offense again, I think it would be in the trenches to protect his franchise QB, and if not, he'd go defense.

and WR is the worst position to give that money out while you're still trying to re-build a team and have a ton of holes, since you have to overpay for them in FA and the best of them never hit the open market anyways, so you have to overpay for someone not quite deserving of the contract. The only way you're getting a true outside #1 like T-Mac is thru the draft, I don't even think Higgins is that type of guy anyways, he's more of someone who could be the best #2 in the league or a middle of the road #1, like the 15th best WR in the league. T-Mac has true Top 5 potential, taking Burden or Hunter and giving Higgins the contract instead of just drafting T-Mac would be the dumbest move of all time. You can find more than effective slot WRs later in the draft or on the cheap in FA, but not the true outside #1's

T-Mac is already a better WR than Higgins is right now, is younger, and won't require 20+ million to sign him this offseason. Draft T-Mac, use all our cap room on the defense, take a shifty, fast slot WR in the 4th. Such a better way to build the WR room than by overpaying for Higgins and drafting Burden.

he went multiple weeks this year of battling an injury, and didn't finish a couple games because of it. Pretty sure he missed a big chunk of his freshman year to injuries and he missed like 3 or so games last year to it too. He's 6'1" 185 lbs with basically double the amount of wear and tear on his body as any other college junior because of the number of snaps he's played. If you don't think that's a factor for a player of his size, you're just sticking your head in the sand to purposefully ignore it. I'm not saying it disqualifies him from a team drafting him highly, but it's not a 0% factor, it must be taken into consideration at the very top of the draft when you have other elite prospects who have more of a prototypical frame for the NFL. T-Mac has a good 30+ lbs on him, Johnson is only an inch taller but almost 20 lbs heavier. Hunter is more like DeVonta Smith, also a Heisman winner, but someone who has had some injury concerns in the NFL because of his slim frame.

no, he's not, he's the 2nd best CB when you're projecting their future NFL prospects. Johnson's size is a big factor there, just like Hunter's lack of size and him battling injuries all 3 years in college is a factor. He's slim, it doesn't help his chances of staying healthy in the NFL when he can't do it in college, even if part of the reason is the number of snaps he's played, as that just means he has so much more miles on his body than the average draft prospect. You can't ignore these things when projecting players at the next level, the fact that you want to, is proof that you live in a Madden lens of how to view everything, not a real world on the field of NFL football. And again, nobody is saying he's an awful prospect, just that he's the 2nd best at either position, that you think that is an insult to him is just comical.

This isn't a Hunter vs T-mac debate for our draft pick It's objectively looking at Hunter, what he does well, where he struggles, and projecting that at the next level. You get all butt hurt when someone says he isn't the #1 prospect and think saying he's #2 at his position and a Top 10 pick is an insult. And yes, T-Mac is 100% a better WR prospect than Hunter, literally not even a debate about that. If you want to debate Hunter as CB vs a WR in T-Mac, that's fair, but that's then position based.

I've used the comparison a bunch of times, but to me, Hunter is much more Reggie Bush than Charles Woodson. Bush was a legit generational college player, who's game didn't perfectly translate to the NFL, so he just never was going to be a true NFL star. Woodson was a generational college player for similar reasons to Hunter, but he also was just a legit true HOF shutdown corner. I think Hunter falls somewhere between them, but I think he's more of the collegiate freak than the sure fire NFL HOFer.

you're literally pointing to his HS ranking, his possible Heisman trophy, his stats, as the reasons he should be the top prospect. You can't say all that and then belittle someone pointing out how past college stat stuffers and heisman winners doesn't make someone a great NFL player.

Yep, nobody wants to give them/him any credit. We're saying he's a generational collegiate talent and the best player in the nation who is the 2nd best player at his possible positions and a Top 10 pick But nope, we refuse to give him any credit at all. His high school ranking should clearly factor over everything else. You know who else was the #1 rated player in High School, who won the Heisman trophy, and ended up as the #1 overall pick? Bryce Young

oh my god, wait a minute, are you telling me that the best player in college was drafted #1 overall almost 15 years ago? How did I miss that, you're right, the best player in college in any given year should be the #1 overall pick regardless of anyone else in the draft or how else their game translates to the NFL. Teams really screwed up by not taking The Golden Calf of Bristol #1 overall... or even someone like Eric Crouch. My god, how did Troy Smith fall to the 5th round after being the best player and winning the Heisman. You've cracked the code that NFL teams have somehow missed for all these decades, always take the best collegiate player first overall, you can't fail. Johnny Manziel would have been an NFL stud if he went #1 overall We got such a steal in the 4th round by getting Chris Weinke, can't believe the other teams in the league let that happen

Because he's not the best prospect in the draft, he's the best college player in the draft, and those are two entirely different things. Yes, if he focused on one side, his stats may have been better, but stats aren't what makes a player's prospects, it's their abilities and how they translate to the next level. I'm also not knocking him as a prospect, not like I'm saying he's a mid round pick, he's just probably the 2nd best CB and 3rd best WR, in what way is that throwing shade on him? It's literally saying he's a Top 10 pick, just not THE top prospect at his position(s). I really don't get why you think someone saying a player is the 2nd best player at one position and 2nd or 3rd best at another position is hating on them, it's crazy talk. Even in your defense of him here, you say a just asinine sentence, "he's the #1 rated prospect because he's actually elite at both positions" His ability at 2 positions has 0% bearing on his NFL prospects, as no team is going to use him full time both ways, he's either going to be a full time WR, or a mostly full time CB who gets 5 or so snaps a game on offense. So him playing both positions shouldn't factor into any team's draft evaluation of him, if a team is taking him over Johnson because of the few snaps he'd play on offense, they're choosing a player for the wrong reason. The only way I'm taking him over T-Mac is if it's a team that already has a true outside #1 and what they need is speed in the slot to compliment the outside guy (and btw, most teams don't have that, if anything, most would have the slot guy and need the true outside #1). Your need to constantly talk about stats is also just a red flag for your evaluations of players, as the college game is wild, stats don't mean near as much as you think. So many college offenses are built to put up monster stats, particularly against the weaker defenses in colleges, even if doing so exposes them to other issues, because in the end, the good can outweigh the bad in the college game in a way that doesn't happen in the NFL.

This is just a classic example of falling for the media hype and/or not seeing the difference between being a generational collegiate talent and actual translation to the NFL. Yes, Hunter is completely unique and there's never been anyone quite like him in college. But at the same time, he's literally not even the best WR or CB in the draft, that's T-Mac and Will Johnson. Just because someone is generational in college, it doesn't mean they are the best possible NFL prospect at any given position, they're two entirely different things. Yes, Hunter is a true elite CB prospect and a very very good WR prospect, but individually he's not even the best at either position and he's not going to be a full time 2 way player in the NFL either. Let someone else deal with the headache that will follow him, he's not even on my draft board, if it was him or trade the pick for someone else to get stuck with dealing with him, I'm trading that pick 100 times out of 100, even if it's just moving back 1 spot and adding a future 7th rounder to do so.