tukafan21

Nah, I just heard about the best moment from last night and it's something nobody will ever see. The mother of the Steelers pick was in the hospital on life support and he was able to get to the hospital last night to tell her he was drafted before she passed away shortly after. Him getting to tell his mother that he was a 1st round pick was the best moment from last night in regards to the draft, no question about it. I can't imagine what that family is going through, just unimaginable to have the high's and low's of all that in one night, just awful.

fug Dan, I'm taking the credit on this one, I've spent the last 18 months speaking this into existence, you're welcome Panthers nation, hahaha

Yup........... Drafting Tetairoa McMillan LOL

I get it, and while I know we've been stuck in a perpetual re-build for years now and fans and ownership wants results, I think Tepper has finally realized that we really were at rock bottom after 2023 and despite the record and defense, we did show a lot of improvement last year as a franchise, particularly the culture. If we continue to improve there, I think it will appease Tepper enough to give them a 3rd year, and at that point, it's put up or shut up. Also, it comes down to if we're still losing, why. Because if Bryce just reverts back to his rookie year form, then I can also see Tepper realizing that it's not necessarily D&D's fault, but Fitt, Reich and crew who put them there. Whether it will save D&D's jobs who knows, but it does add a wrinkle to the situation.

Well I'm not sure the players and coaching can improve while doing worse, so yea, if we win less games, that's a bad sign. But we very well could only improve to 6 or 7 wins, nothing major, but show significantly more improvement when looking at the tape itself. So it depends on how you look at it. Only improving by 1 or 2 wins might not be enough to satisfy the fan base's desire to get better, but fans are dumb and only look at things in the moment for the most part. But I can absolutely see a situation where Tepper is pleased with Dan and Dave if the team shows improvement and a better overall culture. It's still only year 2 for them and this thing was never going to be fixed overnight. Which is why I'm more concerned about actual improvement on the field over improvement in the win column this next season.

This might sound bad/wrong/weird, but I don't really care about our win total this year. We're not contending for a SB this year, so I'm less concerned about actually winning games as much as I am concerned about just seeing our players and staff improve year over year. You can get better without actually winning games, it's why so many teams can go from having Top 10 picks for a handful of straight years and then jump right into contending in a year span. I've long said we need to look at the Lions the last 3-5 years. They were terrible, then they started getting the right pieces and while they weren't actually winning games, they were changing their culture and their players were getting better. They then went from just missing out of the playoffs to being in the conference championship game the next season and then earned the 1 seed the season after that. Yes, I want to win games, but this year is still a building year, not a contending year. So improvement even if the wins themselves don't come and it will be a successful season and could set us up for a really good 2026 with the right moves again next offseason to supplement the quality moves we've made the last couple offseasons.

And in the past few years all those teams have heavily invested on the offensive side of the ball as the best offensive players hit free agency far less than defensive guys. So you build up that offense, get your studs to put points on the board, and then shift to the defense. Bijan, London, Penix, Pitts in Atlanta. Lamar, Flowers, and some OL for the Ravens. Hurts and Smith for the Eagles (and basically Brown too since they traded their 1st for him).

You know when I won't be happy about this pick? When it completely ruins my fantasy draft this year, hahahahaha. We do an auction draft and while I have the most historical success in our league (same group of guys for about 15 years now), my one flaw is that I have a real hard time not overpaying for the guys I have a soft spot for and our league has gotten good at getting me to over bid on them to get them. I'm so screwed this year, I'm going to have to put a very hard cap on my budget for T-Mac and not allow myself to bid a dollar over it. I've already made the determination that he's going to be the first player I nominate this year so I can get it out of the way early and don't sit on budget waiting for him only to over pay or not get him in the end.

I wouldn't hate if we took a quick twitch speedster in the 4th, but when you look at the WR room right now with T-Mac, XL, and Coker all in their first 2 years, even with Thielen there, I'd rather pick up a vet FA for that role than another rookie, just to get some more experience in the room. Then once we lose Theilen, unless we hit it right on the FA signing for that speedster role, maybe we look at using like a 3rd rounder next year to fill the role, but that's a problem for next offseason hopefully.

LOL After all the poo I've taken on here the last year with discussion about him, you're damn right I'm going to cook up a freaking storm right now. Despite all the words I've said since the pick was made, I'm still at a loss of words to accurately describe my feelings, it's still very surreal to me that T-Mac is a Panther, I feel like the NFL might still be able to step in and take him away from me, I mean us (LOLOL), somehow.

That I actually wouldn't be upset about. I'm still a little upset that I waited a year to get my Cam authentic jersey, as his rookie year was his only one with the original logo and kinda wish I had that one from Cam's rookie year. So as long as he wears the number/jersey as a rookie, I want that rookie jersey. If he gets a new number or we get new uniforms 2026, then I'll just get another, but at least I'll always have that rookie year one in my closet.

I can now confirm that it's actually the first time in school history that we've had 1st round picks in back to back drafts.

As soon as the one I want is available (probably). Looked last night and they only have the "standard" one right now, but that aint good enough for me on this one. Authentic or nothing LOL. Only reason I might wait a tad bit, is to just make sure whatever number he takes, he doesn't change after camp cuts if someone else has what he really wants. I'd be pretty angry if I spent the money on an authentic jersey only for him to change his number a couple of months later. What I really want is less of a jersey for myself, but hoping they do the the T-Shirts with his name/number on them in baby sizes so I can get one for my 1 year old Nephew. I've got him gear from my other teams but had refused to get him anything Panthers yet as I wasn't going to saddle him with our awfulness, but now......... yea, he needs that T-Mac shirt/jersey!

He's explained before that he feels "Tet" is disrespectful to his mother who named him. And given how much their Polynesian heritage means to their family, my best guess is that the name has a deeper meaning to him and his family, so shortening it to something like that comes off as disrespectful to him/them. Totally different than a diva like Shedeur.

I think you nail it right on the head here, I think why this is so crazy for me is because we're not a football powerhouse and we don't put a ton of guys into the NFL, so the odds of us ever drafting an Arizona guy are low in general, let alone someone who just re-wrote our record books. In fact, this is back to back years we've had a 1st round pick (OL that went to GB last year) and it now makes me wonder when the last time that happened for us, and my guess is a long time ago (maybe in the 90's when we had a great run on defense?) I spent the last couple years watching T-Mac. And when I say that, I mean it literally. I don't love the college game much anymore and over the past decade, I've only been a sporadic watcher of Arizona Football. But these last few years with him in town and killing it, I've watched every snap of every game, and when we're on offense, I don't watch the QB, I'd just immediately find T-Mac line up and just watch him go to work.

Is this still all real? I keep pinching myself today to make sure it wasn't all some big dream I had last night, because I'm still in a bit of shock. My voice is completely shot today, way too much screaming last night when the pick was made. It's also been a lot of fun bouncing around between here and my Arizona board since the pick was made, this is all just so surreal, too freaking happy

I keep going on and on and on about his separation? I challenge you to go find one post I've ever made that says he's some elite separator, but here's a little tip, you won't find it, because I've never once said it. I've defended my guy to the death on here, but I've never once tried to lie about who he is as a player, I've recognized his faults and where he needs to improve, because I can look at who a player is without bias. I've said he's better than some give him credit for on here, but I've also said NUMEROUS times that it's one of the areas he does need to improve upon (like every prospect at this point in their career has things to get better at).

You do realize this wasn't him being interviewed, right? It was some video someone posted online and those two guys are doing a podcast and are just watching this video, they're not interviewing him leading into the draft. He was being filmed by some random kid who was talking to him while eating lunch in some cafeteria a like two years ago.

As a T-Mac fan, if we didn't take him, that's where I wanted him to land as it would have been an amazing fit. Lamb plays mostly in the slot, giving them a true #1 on the outside to let Lamb stay inside, that would have been a dangerous combo for Dak

We play the Jags this year, so who knows, we might get to see a rematch between them, would be cool if it was Week 1 and they match up a lot, I'm all for it, let's go baby.

I think we could still use speed from the slot, but with T-Mac, XL, and Coker already as part of our Top 4 with Thielen, I think we should look to bring in a Vet FA in that role than look for someone else in the draft there.

Oh, the previous year when he had 9 catches for 107 yards in the game, while catching (I believe, again, not trying to re-research it at this point) 3 of the 5 targets he had while Hunter was covering him, including a 1 on 1 red zone matchup where T-Mac created separation in a short space and made a nasty catch for the Touchdown, oh and not to mention also drawing a PI call on Hunter in coverage as well? Yea, what a bum we just drafted.

I'm not going to keep refuting when people say dumb things about T-Mac like the last few months, but I'll still love when people spout off dumb stuff like this and make it sound like they've done their research watching full game footage to make statements like this. You gave yourself away when talking about how he couldn't get open vs Hunter in this year's Colorado game. Hunter came into the game hurt, played sparingly in the 1st half and then didn't play a single snap in the 2nd half, literally not one and if I remember correctly, he had even changed into street clothes at halftime so he wasn't even dressed in the 2nd half. There's a ton more I can say, lots of other stats to refute your nonsense about him not performing against good teams (I've pulled the data against ranked teams and it proves you wrong, just don't feel like going and doing it again or finding an old post of mine), but just not worth doing all that. But yea, every time I see someone talk about Hunter getting the best of him this past season while saying people need to go watch the tape, just makes me crack up because if they actually watched said tape, they'd know how dumb of a statement it was.

The funny thing, I also have a random personal connection to Funchess too. He's from my hometown and basically was the best football player to ever come from our town, before him it was probably Drew Stanton, but he moved into town for high school, Funchess grew up here. I got to meet him the summer after we drafted him through a mutual friend and then was able to get him to sign the picture the next summer with "From [our hometown] to Carolina" Now I need to get a picture with T-Mac and get him to sign it "Bear Down and Keep Pounding" as Bear Down is Arizona's motto. The difference is I just thought it was cool for the Panthers to draft the best player from my hometown, not like I was pounding the table for it because I thought he was going to be a stud, which has been the case with T-Mac for a long time now with me here.