Panthers legend Steve Smith wasn’t always a fan of wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan. In fact he was critical of the Panthers selecting him with the number eight pick of this year’s draft.
“Good player. Not a great player,” Smith said leading up to the draft. “A lot of room for improvement. I don’t think he ran fast. I don’t think he’s going to test well,” Smith continued. “I don’t think he’s going to run dynamic routes. The T Mac evaluation for me is; yeah, he’s a number one ranked wide receiver, but he’s not THE number one wide receiver. I think he leaves a lot of plays on the field.”
Smith doubled down on his criticism after the Panthers selected McMillan with their first round draft pick.
“You drafted what you already had in the room and I was shocked when you have a Matthew Golden with speed. You had Higgins who went later.”
Now with the Panthers in contention for the NFC South with the Buccaneers and McMillan leading all rookie wide receivers with 826 receiving yards on 57 targets, Smith is changing his tune.
“T Mac is playing outstanding football,” he said on his podcast this week. “I can go on record. I was wrong. I thought that wasn’t a good pick. It wasn’t. It was a great pick.”
Kudos to Smith for publicly admitting he was wrong. It’s not the easiest thing to do.
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