tukafan21

Totally agree, BUT.......... I do think what we've already seen out of XL, Coker, and Sanders in year 1 is better than what we saw out of our past skill position picks that haven't panned out, KB's rookie year as the outlier. Especially since adding T-Mac pushes all 3 of them down in the pecking order and in turn, makes them a better player for the role they'll be taking on. Chuba has shown he can be a legit back and obviously, I'm as confident as anyone can ever be about a player panning out as I am with T-Mac. Nothing is guaranteed, but I really do think we've finally brought the right guys in and we're looking at our future offensive weapons already on the roster, it all hinges on Bryce thought of course.

Also, while the discussion is fun, I'm going to ask the original question in the OP again as nobody has mentioned one way or the other if they know..... Are they selling these in the team store yet? The timing of when these will start to ship out is really the only thing keeping me from putting my order in yet. If I'll get it in a month or less, I'm ordering it now, if it's going to be a while, I'm going to wait to see if they offer the blue and/or the better version of them.

I loved this answer, and not even just from the "fun teammate banter" part of it. That was such a media savvy answer by T-Mac, you just got drafted, there's no need to go calling out players on other teams and instantly providing bulletin board material (like the Cowboys guy calling out Jalen Carter did). Call out a teammate and instead of putting a target on your back to opposing teams or fans, you set up for fun practice battles to help the team improve, iron sharpens iron, the two of them are going to be the best thing for each other's careers and going up against each other every day in practice.

Yea, it would be cool to get the draft card because that's what got him on the Panthers and it says it was his first autograph after being picked, but if I was going to spend that kind of money on something signed by him, I'd rather it be something that is cooler to display, like a helmet or something. What I really want is to get some custom thing made that is half Arizona and half Panthers and get him to sign it with and inscription of each team's motto "Bear Down and Keep Pounding".

I see what you're saying, but Hunter is also just a freak of an athlete, and while it's impossible to quantify it in any way, there's a legitimate argument to be made that Hunter has the best conditioning of any player to ever get drafted in the NFL. Which if that was the case, it wouldn't really be fair to compare any player to him in that sense. Also, I'm not going to pretend I watched enough of Colorado to know, but maybe they took Hunter off the field at times to give him a play or two off as his breather. We really never did that with T-Mac, he was more or less out there for every offensive snap. So if the coaches were telling him to take those plays off as opposed to standing on the sideline for the breather, just so he's out there as a dummy distraction, you also can't really then fault him for it either, it's not a lack of effort, it's doing what your coaches are telling you to do so you can then be the impact player they need the other 95% of the plays.

I'll give you the Etienne pick to make up for Brooks, but I think you're looking at the T-Mac/XL picks wrong. Taking T-Mac wasn't "covering" the mistake of the other picks, it was "fixing" the XL pick. We took XL there because we expected him to be our new #1, but it just seems clear after his rookie year that he's never going to be THAT type of guy, even if he improves significantly. But he does seem like he has that high end #2 potential, and that's where the T-Mac pick makes it "fixing" the pick and not "covering" for a bad one. The T-Mac pick pushes all the other WR's down a peg in the pecking order, and in turn, that makes them all that much better as they'll now be going up against a DB one more peg down on their own pecking order. XL and Coker don't have have a 1/2 pairing potential, but they both could be at the very upper end of the 2's and 3's out there, it totally changes the equation for who they are for us.

Where's the jersey? I'm seeing the hat and draft card on the NFL Auctions site, but not the jersey (although they have a Bryce and XL one). I kinda want the draft card to be honest, but wow, it's already at $460 with 2 weeks to go. EDIT: Oh I found the jersey, it just wasn't showing up when you sort by Panthers stuff for seam reason, it's already at $850, that thing is going to be WAY more than I could ever justify, especially considering it's not even his number and it says "Panthers" on the back instead of his name, no thanks.

So THAT'S why they took my guy They knew they had at least 1 sucker out there like myself who might not be able to be patient enough for them to sell the better version so they just go out and get this one now, they saw me coming from a mile away. LOL

I like to look at it as we have our offensive skill positions of the future set in place, IF they pan out like we think/expect them to, as we won't need to address those positions (outside of backups) for at least 5 years pending cap issues. QB: Bryce RB: Chuba/Brooks/Etienne WR: T-Mac/XL/Coker TE: Sanders If these guys become the players we think they can become, putting aside being able to find a way to afford them all, that grouping has potential to be one of the best offensive groupings in the league in 3 years from now. Yea, it all hinges on Bryce becoming that guy, but there is a crazy amount of potential in that group, and Chuba at 4 years of experience is the vet by a country mile as even Bryce is the only one there with more than 1 year of experience and he only has 2 himself.

There will be times you think the pass is going to go way over his head or wide and he'll have no chance to get there and then he'll just do his Inspector Gadget thing and use his go go gadget arms to extend out there to pluck the ball out of nowhere

Yep, even if you put aside any discussion about what you think about him as a player or how good he'll be, the one thing that is a 100% certainty is that he's going to make some plays that just drop your jaw and question how he did what we just saw. This is interesting as it was something I'd never even thought/heard of until he was walking on stage after we took him. One of the analysts on NFL Network brought it up saying something like, "I don't agree with this idea, but I know a lot of college coaches tell the star WRs to purposefully take plays off when they know it's not coming to them" It was interesting because the way he said it, almost sounded like he's heard that it was something the Arizona coaches would tell T-Mac to do. Which on a team like ours last year, actually makes a ton of sense, because we had NOBODY else who the defense had to worry about. So instead of taking him off the field to give him a breather, just throw him out there on the far side of the field as a dummy to keep the defense's attention and then run a play in the other direction. You're right, he isn't "as quick" as Evans, because he's quicker. Sure, Evans does use his body better than T-Mac does, but T-Mac is a better athlete with more wiggle to his game and better at making a defender miss whereas Evans is just more likely to run through you. And your edit here is basically just an add on to my above comment, as personally, I've used the AJ Green comp for him ever since his first game for us at Arizona, it was always who I saw in his game. He has that fluidity that Green had to him, and at their size it stands out. Actually saw another comp last night that I hadn't seen before, and while I'll admit it's been YEARS since I've seen any film of him, my immediate reaction was, "oh wow, that might be a real solid comp for style of play" And that was of Plaxico Burress. I'd like to see T-Mac have a better overall career than Plax had (especially off the field), but from what I remember about his game, the comp for body/style of play actually seems pretty solid

Ugh, I didn't even realize until today that they only versions they have for T-Mac right now are the ones where everything is heat pressed on, not the "fake stitched" versions you guys are talking about here. I've always hated those fully screen pressed ones, they just seem cheat and crappy to me, and even though that next step up is still not the best, they at least feel like more of a real jersey to me and is worth the extra 35 bucks to get them. But of course they don't sell them in that one yet, which is weird, if they're all still "pre-orders" anyways, why aren't they offering the more expensive version to steal even more money from the rubes out there like myself who just can't help themselves?!?!?

Those aint no T-Rex arms......

Also remember that essentially Derrick Brown is an offseason addition to the defense too, that’s not insignificant when we’re talking about improving the defense from last year.

If we win the conference and it's not because of injuries in TB or Penix being a dud, then it means Bryce is in the MVP discussion and if that happens, then T-Mac probably had one of the best rookie seasons for a WR ever. Because this defense has added some nice potential pieces, but it's nowhere near ready to compete at a level to win the South this year unless the offense just goes nuts as one of the highest scoring teams in the league with Bryce doing the Mahomes thing and winning close late games on a weekly basis. So sure, I'm in. I'm proven right and my guy looks like the next big thing and I'm proven wrong and Bryce is also the real deal and we're set up with an elite QB-WR combo for the next decade.

The final spot has to be between Renfrow and Moore and pending how he looks after the year off, I might lean Renfrow. We now have our offense of the future in place if they pan out, this season has one main goal and it's expediting the growth of this very young group of skill position players. Chuba, Rico, and Tremble have each played 4 seasons (all the others are 2 or less) and are the most experienced skill position players on the team other than Dalton, Thielen, Moore, and now Renfrow. With Moore and Renfrow then being cut at the expense of one of those UDFA's if we kept one. Having Dalton and Thielen as the only two skill position players on the active roster with more than 4 years of experience, and only 3 others with more than 2, doesn't seem smart. We don't need more lottery tickets, coaches can only do/teach so much, we need vets for these guys to learn from so we get the best out of them and have our offense for hopefully the next 5-8 years in place pending being able to afford them all.

Exactly, hence the real question in the OP, does anyone know if they've started selling them in Charlotte this weekend or even today, like at the team store? If they have, then the online orders probably would be going out in a few weeks. I'd rather not order it now and it still take a few months and by then I could have got the blue one that I prefer instead. But if the blacks are going out soon, then I want to get that now, I'm too excited still, hahaha. I was going to do the authentic, but saw they're like $400 now (what the hell?!?!), so figure I'll wait on that one for a few years as I do think we'll get new uniforms sooner than later and will do the authentic then.

XL and T-Mac are basically as polar opposite as possible with XL as backwoods southern kid and T-Mac a Hawaii and So Cal kid, but they both have big personalities and neither is remotely shy in front of the camera. The team should have them do some ongoing social media segment together as I think the two of them are going to be a hilarious combo off the field to watch together, it would be gold. If T-Mac is the player I expect him to be and XL can improve, they will make for a very fan friendly WR duo for a while.

Maybe they let some fans do the deal, because it was basically like the type of trades you see the fans do during their mock drafts all the time, just keep adding picks to the deal until the values about balance out, hahaha

The +800 on getting to 10 TD's looks quite tasty, if he plays 17 games I think he gets to double digit TDs. XL was our best Redzone target last year, T-Mac is an insane upgrade in that role next year, he's going to be a target monster in the end zone

For me it's very much situation dependent like I said above, so if anything, I think I'd actually prefer this type of stat line because I think it would bode well for overall team growth and success. Harrison had McBride there to "steal" 111 Rec and 1,146 yards, it's going to be hard for any rookie to put up better stats than he did when that happens, and he was supposed to be the best WR prospect in the last few decades. For me the big stat for T-Mac this year will be TD's, because I can see a scenario where the massive yard totals isn't there because of all the options Bryce will have and he's still a rookie, but he should be the clear top dog in the redzone playbook and hope we use him accordingly.

I'd expect more TD's at a minimum, as I really think he's going to be our go-to redzone option from the first snap of the season. But realistically, if Thielen has 800-1000 yards as a Bryce check down favorite, while Bryce himself has a good season, and XL/Coker both improve because of it, then I don't think that's a bad rookie year if those are the numbers he puts up as that's the type of season that then sets up for him to get 1,200 and 10 the next year once Thielen is gone, which would be a great 2nd season. We're still going to be a run based team with the OL and RBs we have and and Thielen is still going to be a legitimate option this year, so expecting much more than that in the above scenario would be asking for a lot from any rookie. If Thielen only plays 10 games again (or less), our running game can't perform again like last year, and/or XL/Coker don't improve or even take a step back and we then need to rely on T-Mac more and he only puts up those numbers, then yea, I'd say he underperformed on the season.

Well played

Sure, very fair point, but given what this player and draft pick means to me, that rational thinking goes out the window, lol. I obviously don't think he'll be a bust and even if he were and/or we traded him before that 2nd contract, it's still a jersey I'd have to own.

He wanted 11 in high school but it was taken so he went with 4 and then stuck with it in college (actually, his QB he'd played with since 8th grade was 11 at Arizona). And I know he at first said he wanted to go with 11, but seeing as it's an open number and he went with 4 anyways, gotta think he's going to end up sticking with it at this point for at least his rookie year. Especially as it works with both of his nicknames too, as he can do N4LO and T-M4C, which he's done with some of his NIL gear the last couple years. If he changes his number after the season, then I'd still be fine with it, because I need to have his rookie year jersey in my closet