tukafan21

I still think people look at how Bryce ended the season wrong. Yes, he was clearly a million times better than he was as a rookie or even the start of last season, but he was still miles away from being some great QB. He was a serviceable game manager who did some nice things, but he still wasn't a "#1 draft pick that you trade the farm for" type of player. Again, I'm never going to root for his failure, I'm rooting for him to become the best QB in the league as long as he's a Panther. But he's still more on the wrong side of the fence at the moment for being our long term QB solution, he has to prove he can be that FAR more than the opposite, as he hasn't done anything yet to earn that distinction.

100% But the fact that there is even a thread comparing them on our boards shows you how our fans are feeling about that McShay report. Sure, there is a thread about the Smitty stuff too, but to even put McShay/T-Mac in the same breath as the Kiper/Shedeur stuff puts the two T-Mac things in perspective lol

^^^ For whatever it's worth, the fan base is far more angry with McShay (and Fisch since we "know" it was him feeding that to him) and the bullshit he spewed out there than Smitty. There's a thread on our board right now asking which was worse, the McShay/T-Mac stuff or Kiper's handling of Shedeur stuff... that's how angry the fan base is with that "reporting" by McShay, lol

All true And yes, if you sent me back in a time machine without my knowledge of us drafting T-Mac, then yea, I'm doing the Rams trade and I'm not doing the Bryce trade. But the most likely scenario is in that alternate universe where we did either or both of those, the dominoes don't end up falling to where T-Mac is a Panther, which really is the end all be all for me of course. I look at everything that has happened in the Panthers 30 year history as leading to my favorite team drafting my school's best player and immediately giving me any new favorite Panther and overall football player of all time. It's made even losing the SB's become even more tolerable, because it all lead to this...........

"hate" is the wrong word, but yea, they kinda hate him right now (this might legit be the first and only time I've ever referred to Wildcat fans as "they" and not "we" because of course I can't hate Smitty, LOLOL) You have to remember, T-Mac is basically our best player in school history, at least offensively. We've had a lot of great defenders, mainly back in the 90's, and we had Gronk who while great for us, more made his mark in the NFL of course as he only played his freshman and sophomore year for us (had he not been injured and missed his whole junior season, he might own that distinction over T-Mac). When anyone talks down your best player in school history, the fans aren't going to take kindly to it. Add in the irony of T-Mac then getting drafted by the team who's receiving records are all owned by said person talking down their guy, and yea, the fan base is going to have a field day with that one, haha.

The questioning of his work ethic isn't from Smitty, it's from the McShay report that in 2023 when Jedd Fisch was there to "put his foot on T-Mac's throat" he was great. But now that he left there was nobody there to do it this past year and his effort suffered. Which is complete bullshit It's Fisch out there trying to take credit for T-Mac's success while trying to also talk himself and his coaching ability up, and it all stemmed from the sour grapes from Fisch of T-Mac and Fifita not following him to Washington last year.

Not really though For two main and connected reasons... If we had been able to get the Bryce pick using the Rams picks as suggested, we'd have kept DJ, which in all likelihood might have been enough to keep us from "earning" the #1 pick last year anyways. And even if it didn't, if we had DJ, we probably aren't taking T-Mac this year anyways as then a #1 WR wasn't as dire of a need and we probably go defense or that's when we take the TE instead of another WR.

Why we didn't bring in legit competition for Bryce is actually VERY simple. IF... Bryce isn't the guy, we have to replace him next year and whoever we brought in as that legitimate competition wasn't going to be the long term solution either (it would have been like a Wilson, Jameis, Cousins, etc type). IF... Bryce sucks this year, benching him for one of those guys isn't going to make us contenders, but it's also going to keep us from having a high draft pick to replace Bryce with. So you ride with Bryce, he either sinks or swims, but either way, it sets us up for the future. If he swims it's Bryce, if he sinks it's a new draft pick. But having someone like Wilson lead us to a 8-9 record and the 15th pick in the draft would keep us in QB purgatory.

Honestly, I'm not sure it will, and I don't mean that in a bad way. T-Mac never struck me as the Smitty type, that takes that stuff in and uses it as fuel. He's the type that just flat out doesn't care about it, he's himself and just goes out there and does him. I think he's more the type to laugh something like that off than use it as anger fuel, which I don't think is a bad thing either, it shows confidence in yourself and a strong mentality that you don't let others opinions affect yourself.

"we set ourselves up to draft T-Mac 2 years later" FIFY lol

And it's not just his college position coach, but it's the person who's school receiving yards record T-Mac broke, while he was coaching him. We hired Wade going into this season and apparently the first thing T-Mac said to him was that he was going to break his record this year, and then he did it, freaking LOVE it. You'd think there could be some sour grapes when you lose your longstanding record, but all year long, all Wade did was talk about how excited he was to see T-Mac break it and that he was going to help him do it.

As I said in another thread, the majority of his "work ethic issues" stem from that McShay report, that is pretty widely assumed/known in the Arizona community that it was our POS old coach who was throwing shade because he was upset that T-Mac and Fifita didn't follow him to Washington. In 3 years at Arizona, there was never a single shred of evidence or mention that he had work ethic issues.

I'm not saying he's wrong on all of his projections, he's right on some, no doubt about it. But I'd say he's been way more wrong than right when evaluating WRs over the last 5 years or so, I'd consider that regularly in my book, but to each his own.

As I just said in another thread... Without this trade, T-Mac is not a Panther. I don't need to know anything else other than that, we won this trade, or maybe I just did, who knows, but I don't care because I'm still floating on Cloud 9.

One of my favorite things about us taking T-Mac is that I get to see my Arizona boards attack my GOAT (haven't been able too decide which boards I'm enjoying more... rubbing it in my fellow Wildcat fan's faces that my NFL team took our guy or just celebrating on here that we took him, they're equally fun in different ways lol). Needless to say, Smitty is not a well liked person these days in Tucson, and all the Wildcat family is talking about how they hope T-Mac takes all his Panthers records away (which frankly I agree now as just a Panthers fan, because it means we drafted a HOFer). But one of the things I keep telling them is that as Panthers fans, we know Smitty is regularly wrong on his WR projections and that Smitty hating on T-Mac is probably a better sign for his career than the opposite.

The funny thing, is that yea, I've been one of the biggest Bryce bashers since we drafted him, and not just on here, my friends all know I was never happy with the trade or pick. Well after the Bears used our final pick from that trade, a friend tried to troll me in a group chat by sending that final list of everything and my response was, "all I see is a trade the Panthers won" which of course they called me a liar for, but for me, it's now very much true. Bryce has now fallen into the same category as the Clausen pick for me. I despised the Clausen pick, absolutely hated it (obviously for good reason), but in retrospect, I love the pick because it's what started the chain of dominoes that lead to us getting Cam, without Clausen, we likely never get to have Cam. That trade was the starting of the dominoes that lead to us getting T-Mac, and for me, no matter my feelings towards Bryce or however he turns out as a player, I'll now always love the trade/pick because it got my guy to Carolina, LOL.

Sweet Jebus you're right, he is 6'1" It's amazing how a guy can get measured at the combine at 6'1", but everyone still lists him at 6'3" and fans don't bother to go look at his combine measurement and think he's actually 6'3" I won't lie, I've thought he was 6'3" this whole time, he's listed as such on the team site, espn, wikipedia, everywhere. But also on his wikipedia page are his combine measurements where it lists him at 6'1", crazy.

Yes, because he's finally surrounded by a legitimately good NFL cast of offensive teammates. There are no holes in our offense right now, we have everything (except experience) that a team could want for their QB. It's time to put up or shut up, and while I won't deny I've never been a Bryce backer, I'm still going to root hard for him to prove me wrong, I'd rather eat crow than still need us to find a long term QB solution.

Dead wrong. If he had been in last year's class, he'd have been in contention with Odunze to be the 3rd WR taken after MHJ and Nabers. Yes, I know Thomas Jr exploded for the best season of any of them and looks like a stud, but he was still picked in the 20's, and T-Mac would have gone before him. Even if he didn't get taken before Odunze in the Top 10, he likely would have still gone Top 15 and be the next WR off the board.

You have no idea, Jedd Fisch is the definition of scumbag, I never even liked him when he was at Arizona and I celebrated when he left. He's the definition of a snake oil salesman, just go look at his coaching history, all he does is jump around every year or two because he's all about himself and just isn't a well liked person so he quickly wears out his welcome. A big reason most of the team stayed in Tucson was he built up this whole "family" mantra and recruited players who felt the same way, in particular, a very heavy Polynesian group of players who tend to value that. When he left in the way he did, it really upset them because it was the opposite of everything he ever sold them on and what they stood for. Which is why they stayed together, as a family, and lead by T-Mac (well, and Fifita, but you know what I mean, the two of them were the leaders of the band)

If you think Higgins is a near replica of T-Mac, you're going to be more than pleasantly surprised when you see him out there for us this year. Just as if you think "we took a tall WR in round 1 last year" means XL and T-Mac are remotely close to the same player. Basically the ONLY thing that is similar about the two of them is that they're both 6'3" or taller, after that, the comparisons stop, unless you count that they're both now Carolina Panthers.

Washington has a ton of NIL money, like a stupid amount, which is why the assumption was that T-Mac and the rest of our core group of players were going to follow Fisch to Washington. Here is a good article that talks about that whole thing and why T-Mac (and Fifita) were the reason the majority of the team stayed in Tucson... https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/40918248/arizona-noah-fifita-aiming-big-12-championship-2024 And while it's not mentioned in that article above, it was known that T-Mac (and Fifita) told boosters to take some of the NIL they were offering the two of them to stay, and to spread it around to the other players to help keep as many players in town as possible. Also... for anyone who was worried about the reports coming out in the days before the draft from McShay, as I said at the time, they were all complete crap and were staunchly refuted by all the Arizona insiders who know the team well. The leading "theory" (and I put that in quotes because it's one of those, "we don't know, but we KNOW") as to where that came from was that it was Fisch. Part of why he got/took the Washington job was that he sold them on being able to bring Fifita, T-Mac, and the other impact players with him to Washington and he wasn't happy when they stayed in Tucson. He also has DEEP connections in the NFL world as that's where he spent most off is career and he was out there trying to make it sound like T-Mac fell off a cliff without him, out of spite.

It was a combination of Fifita regressing this year and losing the coaching staff we had in 23, now how much was his regression also directly due to the staff change or were they separate issues that then compounded each other, who knows. Part of it was also that the new staff wasn't able to replace Jacob Cowing, who was a 4th round pick by the 49ers last year and in 23 tied T-Mac for I think it was 9th in the nation in catches with 90, or our TE Tanner McLachlan who was a 6th round pick by the Bengals. Without that 2nd and 3rd legitimate receiving threat (plus, it didn't help that our running game was hurt because the Arizona RB who got drafted this year only played the first game of the season then eligibility questions popped up and he was out the rest of the season) our entire offense was built around T-Mac and it made game planning for opposing defenses very simple, throw everything and the kitchen sink at T-Mac and force Arizona to beat you through other players, which we couldn't do. It didn't stop T-Mac from still putting up elite stats, but it severely hurt our team's offensive success, and thus, how Fifita looked. I also made a long post in the main 40+ page T-Mac selection thread last night that touched on his summer injury and how it MIGHT have affected him this past season, as well as some of the Fifita and coaching change stuff if you want to go look at that one. I never brought the injury up in all the draft discussions because I didn't want to look like I was making excuses for him, but I do think it somewhat affected him at times this year too.