tukafan21

You still only do it if you don't have a serviceable backup RT and your only good backup OT can for whatever reason only play at LT. Protecting your QB's blindside is far more important than the other side, unless your LT really has no business being out there to begin with (which I don't see the case with Ickey), then it's just not a move I could see any team making mid season due to an injury.

Fair, but even with Ramsey and a healthy Horn for 17 games, we're still not a contender and still might not even be a playoff team anyways. So even if Horn goes down and we had Ramsey, we're still screwed. Which is why if it's make that trade or don't use the cap space, I'd rather roll it over to next offseason to have more cap room anyways. If we're talking about trading for a 26 year old with a big contract, totally different, but not someone who turns 31 this season.

He's from Waimanalo in Hawaii and I guess it's big in the either the Hawaiian or Polynesian culture that people refer to you where you're from, hence the Nalo from Waimanalo. Which while I get it, is why I'm also not a fan of it, because it just seems like a generic nickname that a lot of people from there go by, not necessarily specific to him.

Horn is better than Ramsey at this point and I'd rather not use the cap space needed for Ramsey's contract and just roll it over into our cap next offseason to use for signing a younger player who can grow with the team. If Miami wants to trade him, given them having playoff aspirations if Tua can stay healthy (even though I still don't see them as actual SB contenders), then it's a sign that he's on a strong decline right now and not worth the contract.

I get it, but you have to draw a line in the sand somewhere when you're retiring or even just not using numbers. If we're not using 4, we shouldn't be using any of 1, 58, 59, 69, 85, 87, 88, 89, 90, and I could make an argument for 17, 95, 20, or 30 in there as well. For me, you can't retire a number unless the player is (or really should be) a HOFer and spent most of their career with that team. 1, 59, 89, and 90 really should be our only retired numbers, if you're going to make an argument for a non HOFer and you can only choose one, I'd go 58 over 4. But I get it, everyone has their own opinions on that stuff.

Unless you have a left handed QB, you don't move your LT to the other side if your RT gets hurt, especially if it's to see if he can be moved there full time in the future if you wanted to do that and find a new LT.

At this point in the offseason, unless/until there are some cap casualty cuts, pretty much any signing we're going to make will be JAGs. Which is fine, you can only upgrade so many starting spots in any given offseason with long term players, I think between FA and the draft we had a really good offseason, maybe our best in a long time. Show a season of growth, particularly if Bryce can prove to be a long term solution and then next season we focus on a few more key signings, a couple DB's and LB's, with the possibility of an elite pass rusher pending how these young guys do this year and we have the makings of a solid playoff caliber team.

Well it's been used since him already, and sure, he's a Panthers legend, but he's still just a kicker and not a HOFer, so it's just not a number I'd want to see go un-used again, it's not 89, 90, 1, 59, or even 58 or 88, all numbers I think should be untouchable way before 4. I'd have said 4 is a dumb WR number 4 years ago too, but I've become so used to watching him in the number the last 3 years that it just fits for me now. With his tall but slender frame, he needs to wear a single digit number or 11, I think anything else double digit would just look wide and wonky on him. Which really means it came down to 4, 5, or 11 if he wasn't going to try and pay for a number from someone else. I could see the argument for 11, it would look good on him, but again, I'm so used to him in 4 that I now like how it looks on him, so I'm happy with it myself.

I saw the interview where he says he is fine with either but his mom doesn't like Tet, but don't remember him saying about the no hyphen. But I have seen that he doesn't use the hyphen on things like his twitter feed too, so I kinda want to stop using it myself, but I've been talking and reading about the kid for 3 years now and I've always used and seen it as T-Mac with the hyphen, hard habit to break, especially as without the hyphen it looks a little odd to me too.

Why? He's been #4 throughout HS and College, I'd have been more surprised if he went with a different number having worn it for 7 years now. Also, you can do this with either nickname.... N4LO or T-M4C Pretty sure if you order from Fanatics, you get 1 year from purchase date to where if they change their number, they will swap it out for you anyways. So if you wait to get one until just before the season and then next offseason he were to change his number, you might still be able to get it swapped out.

Just saw this cut up of the 2023 T-Mac vs Hunter game, the one where the anti T-Mac people like to say how he only had 3 catches for like 15 yards against Hunter in that game and he did his yardage damage against other CB's in that one. This shows the one PI that was called, another where it absolutely should have been called, and a handful of other routes where he torched Hunter with a great move to get wide open and either didn't even get a pass his way, or had a completely uncatchable ball thrown despite him being wide open. https://x.com/4MR_Fetti/status/1918262063660454227 And this was even from the season Fifita had a good year, it was this past year he regressed to where this was happening even more, a better QB and T-Mac flys past 1,500 yards this year and probably doesn't even get out of the Top 5.

Full honesty... I'd never even heard (or maybe more accurately noticed?) the Nalo nickname until after we drafted him and it's come up so much because people were asking him about nicknames. Arizona fans always just called him T-Mac the last few years and I have no recollection of ever seeing/hearing Nalo. If anything I saw it and didn't even realize who they were talking about or figured it was some auto correct so I just glossed over it without a second thought. So for me he'll always be T-Mac

The majority of NFL draft picks don't play all too many snaps lined up directly across from another NFL player, and I don't think many people really realize this. Unless you play a game against one of the 2-4 schools that are putting half their lineup into the NFL each season, most teams who have multiple draft picks, MIGHT only have 2-4 draft picks in any given season. Some skill positions get around 30 players drafted each year, other positions are in the teens to low 20's. With at least a handful of them coming from non power conference schools too. So the odds for any WR or CB to get too many games lined up directly against another future draft pick is pretty low. The better odds are that they get lined up against a future NFL player, i.e. a junior or senior WR getting lined up against a freshman or sophomore DB who will get drafted in a couple of years. Then if you take it one step further and look for players who actually play in the NFL and make a difference. You're basically looking at players drafted in the first 3 rounds of the draft, so a little less than 100 players a year, spread out across all the positions and conferences (which in today's massive conferences, teams have even lower odds of player the teams with more NFL players than ever before).

I think I had felt like this since the day of the CMC trade. But now......... And now after posting this I just realized the irony that I was very excited about the above, but that was short lived LOL

Worse than answering a phone call in the middle of one of the team interviews? There's a lot of dumb stuff a player could do, but that would be right up there with not even believable. Even if you're trying to tank the interview because you don't want to go there, that even seems a step too far.

And we're so much better off for it. T-Mac just turned 22 and we'll pay him about $28 million over the 4 years of the contract. DK will turn 28 late in the season, is costing the Steelers $132 million the next 4 years, plus a 2nd rounder to get him. Higgins will turn 27 in the playoffs, is costing the Bengals $115 million the next 4 years, and the Bengals probably weren't trading him for less than a 1st rounder.

I'm telling you, The T-Mac & XL Show, would be GOLD

Not totally inaccurate, haha Except that kid wasn't as excited as I was. I was yelling louder, and more, and running around the room in circles until I almost passed out from exhausting and was trying to catch my breath for a good 10 minutes because I'm way too old to be doing that, LOLOL Oh, and I tweaked a muscle in my shoulder from all the punching the air I was doing too. For as awesome as that pick was for me, it really screwed me up for a few days between my shoulder and lost voice (Wrexham securing back-to-back-to-back promotions Saturday afternoon contributed to that though too).

Full disclosure and the real reason.... I'll be seeing my Nephew in basically one month from today, and while I've gotten him stuff from my other teams the past year, I hadn't been willing to saddle him with Panthers stuff yet, that's now changed lol. So if the jersey would get to me before I see him, I'd get that and him his first Panthers onesie/shirt so I can get a picture of us together in them. If it wouldn't get to me by then, I'd just wait to get the one I prefer. So yea, my rush is really just about trying to get a picture of myself in it with my Nephew in Panthers gear too.

Yea, they've "confirmed the number" but that is a generic disclaimer they use, it doesn't mean the jerseys will be shipped out in 2-4 weeks from now already (it also doesn't mean they won't either). My guess is they'll start being shipped out a week or two after they start being sold in the team store, I can't see them shipping pre-orders before the store has them. So if they're not in the store yet despite them confirming his number like 3-4 days ago already, then I wasn't going to order it yet as the blues and/or better version may become available by then, which is what I'd prefer. As I'd be kinda frustrated if I bought the black on pre-order now, and then in a few weeks when they still haven't shipped yet, they then start selling the blues and/or better quality versions of them and those ship out all at the same time anyways.

just hit the market? it's been up there since the night we drafted him lol My question isn't about ordering it but if they're being sold in the team store yet, as that would signal them being shipped out sooner than later. I want the blue one and if the blacks won't ship for a few months, I'd rather wait to see if they put the blue out there before then. But if they're shipping in the next couple of weeks, screw that, I'll order this now and get another blue later, hahaha. I'd also prefer the next step up in the quality, but again, not sure when they'll make those available.

And again, the TLDR of the above is........ My expectations for T-Mac's rookie season have nothing to do with him and more because of my expectations for the rest of the WR room. I think his 2nd season when we then lose Thielen and replace him by just shifting everyone else up a spot in the pecking order and replace him with an end of the bench guy, is when he explodes for a huge yardage season. XL and Coker wouldn't make a good 1/2 combo with Thielen in the slot. But T-Mac as the 1 with Thielen in the slot has the real potential to make XL/Coker an actual elite 2/4 combo. Drafting T-Mac drastically changes the potential impact of those two, if anything, that's the biggest thing taking him did to the offense. Because honestly, how many teams have a 3rd and 4th receiving option as good as XL and Coker?

I think it's strange that you still can't see where I'm coming from, and I guarantee you don't have more faith in him than I do. You're looking at him in a vacuum, not about the team around him and the likely offensive game plans this season. We're going to be a run first team with 3 receiving options better than any of the other players on past rookie 1k seasons. If you can't understand that, then it's a you problem, not a me problem. Arizona's previous basketball coach, Sean Miller, used to do something at the first team meeting of every season and I think it's soooooooooo applicable to this situation. He'd have every player right down how many minutes/points they expected to average that season and then he'd add them up. It would show that if they all hit those numbers, we'd score like 125 points a game and need to be playing 7 guys at a time to get their minutes. That's pretty much how you guys are putting your T-Mac expectations out there, looking solely at the player and what you think he should be able to do, not how the offense will operate as a whole. Every yard one player gets is one less yard someone else can get. It sounds like I just have more faith in Thielen, XL, and Coker this year than most everyone else. But a big reason for that faith is because of T-Mac and how much he'll open things up for the rest of them and Bryce being the type of QB to take the open easy passes than force it to his #1. As I've said, if any one of the following happens... Thielen ends the season sub 700 yards, XL or Coker end up sub 500 yards... Then yes, I will then shift my expectations for T-Mac's rookie year to be at least 1,000 yard season. But since I have faith in those other 3 having solid seasons, it tempers my expectations yardage totals for T-Mac this year, and this year alone. I've also clearly stated many times that I think he's going to reach 10 TDs. If T-Mac ends the season with 800 yards and 10 TDs, while Thielen gets 900-1,000 and XL/Coker each get around 600, I don't see any world where that is a failure for a rookie season for T-Mac. Because again, we're talking about expectations, not what is possible. So given the other WR options, I can't EXPECT T-Mac to get to the 1k mark, which is a far cry from me saying I don't think he can get there. Do you really not see the difference there?

Same, but I'll take it even a step further, it's not about my willingness to buy Panthers gear again for the first time in a few years, it's that I'm even just wearing it again. I don't think I've worn a Panthers shirt in almost 2 years now, I stopped about a month into Bryce's rookie season, I just struggled to get behind the organization and all the mistakes I felt they were making. But I've basically been wearing Panthers gear exclusively since we made the T-Mac pick. My enthusiasm for the team is quite possible at an all time high (maybe that's dumb, but c'mon, you all KNOW why lol).

This is also why in a way, I don't want T-Mac to get to 1,000 yards, because I think it means XL or Coker took a step back. While maybe that would be good for T-Mac's growth, I have absolutely zero, in fact, less than zero concern about T-Mac becoming THAT guy for us and being a Top 10 WR every year with legit Top 5 potential. And even though I have faith that XL and Coker can be that 2/3 combo next to T-Mac in the future, I have far more concern in the two of them getting there than T-Mac being that #1, so their growth is "more important" to me this season than T-Mac's, in that sense. Thielen's presence will suppress the numbers T-Mac/XL/Coker put up, but his presence is what is best for Bryce's growth, which is more important than anything with the WRs this year because we need to know if he's going to be that franchise QB for us. If Bryce already proved himself to be that guy, Thielen isn't even on the team this year and none of this is a debate, then yes, T-Mac would HAVE to put up 1k this season.