Recently a friend told me that Graham sucks in the RZ. I replied, “We both know Graham is worthless; but don’t be a dumbass.” But, I listened and my friend proved his point.
Graham scored 10 TDs in 2017; but also had 8 targets inside the 10 that went for incompletions. What NFL receiver couldn’t get 10 TDs on 18 tries?
All 18 plays are in this
LINK The greatest indictment against Graham is that not one single Defensive Coordinator in 2017 schemed to stop him in RZ.
NOT ONE SINGLE TIME, on these 18 plays was Graham doubled or bracketed and there almost no effort to cover Graham with the team’s best DB. On half of the plays a free safety even on Graham’s side of the field.
3 plays of the 18 Graham was left uncovered…UNCOVERED; resulting in just 2 TDs [and 1 INC]. Note: a DB falling down is not uncovered. Graham was UNCOVERED.
Only 1 TD [a 5 yarder] came against a top DB. Philly’s Jenkins was picked giving Graham 3-4 yards of separation and Jenkins still closed to challenge the pass.
The defenders on his other 7 TDs were: John Johnson [Rookie 3rd round Rams Safety]; Eli Apple [Graham Pushed-off on beleaguered 2nd yr Giants CB]; Tyvon Branch [Lousy 10 yr Cards safety]; Antoine Bethea [Now lousy 11 yr Cards safety]; Devondre Campbell [A quality 2nd year Atl LB]; Akhello Witherspoon [A pretty good looking SF CB for a 3rd round rookie]; Jourdan Lewis [Another pretty good looking Cowboy CB, but he is also a 3rd round rookie].
His other 7 red zone incompletions came against: Davon House [This was not a bracket-GB was in straight zone-no one shading Graham]; Jayon Brown [lousy 2nd yr Titan LB]; Kevin Byard [Decent 2nd yr Titan safety]; Eli Apple; Janoris Jenkins [Average Giants safety]; Kevin Johnson [Lousy Texan CB]; Keanu Neal [decent 2nd yr safety].
On 2 of the TDs Seattle had 2 TEs on the field, TE Vannett [on the Philly/Jenkins pick held both safeties in center of field, while Graham did an out] and TE Willson [Held the safety on the Atl/Campbell TD] both got more attention than Graham from the defense.
This is Graham’s best part of his game and he only got good stats [10 TDs] because of the high number of targets and that the Defense’s focused on stopping other Seattle receivers. Graham is absolutely no more a RZ threat than Richard Rodgers.
Cheesehead TV has a piece by Andy Herman that ran about a week ago. He identified qualities a good TE must have and found 6-7 clips purporting to show these qualities. In these “good plays,” Graham flinched for what should have been -5; bobbled a pass, dropped a pass, etc. Herman obviously had trouble even finding highlights to cleanly support Graham’s supposed positives. Two of the “good plays” were TDs. But, Herman failed to mention that Graham was lined-up outside covered man by 3rd round rookie CBs [Witherspoon and Jourdan Lewis] and there was no help to be found anywhere in the zip code.
Herman identified some weaknesses. He showed some of his drops, on 2,Graham was left UNCOVERED. 18 plays are identified above, 14 more by Herman and Graham is UNCOVERED in 5 of 32 plays. It hard to find true receiving threats uncovered 5 times in their career.
Herman also understated Graham’s blocking as a “weakness.” It’s actually a despicable malignant Ebola. With his size and athleticism it is clear he just doesn’t care. Herman didn’t provide clips that look like Graham got paid to take a dive, it’s pathetic…disgusting. Onee weakness not mentioned by Herman was Graham’s running wrong routes. Graham is Jeff Janis. At :52 in this
LINK Graham is covered man by Tenn LB Jayon Brown [a poor coverage LB], this is an easy TD for 95% of the NFL’s receivers. This is a simple in/out route and Brown has decent coverage inside. The idiot Graham turned inside toward the coverage instead of outside away, no surprise Wilson thru the ball outside for an INC. Graham is too dumb to do a simple in/out read in his 3rd year in that offense. GB’s passing game is infinitely more complicated than NO’s or Seattle’s, the odds of him adapting to GB’s are very low. And last year, as stated in another post Graham single-handedly caused 4 INTs, that has to be a record. Graham didn't have any fumbles in '17; but has 2 in '16 and 7 over his career.
Some say Seattle didn’t know how to use Graham, really? I wish these people would reveal their reasoning. Reminds me of the expert who blathers on about the earth being flat; they cant support that either. As a Saint Graham had some great plays. Though raw, Graham’s unbelievable athleticism and huge catch radius allowed great stats; but the offense was dumbed down for him. Graham got his big 4 yr contract in 2014, and Saints dumped him in 2015. Ask yourselves: Who gets rid of a superstar, signed for 3 years at $27M cash, so they could take a $9M Cap hit and give Pick #112 to Seattle for Pick #31 and a 29 YO pretty good, not great, injured center [Unger only finished 4 games the year before due to two significant injuries]? Answer: When the Saints paid Jimmy, he took his Sainthood too seriously and decided that he didn’t need to improve. His true soft, lazy me-firstest ugly inner character was revealed. And the Saints dumped him.
PFF overall graded Graham as “poor.” The Outsiders only measure receiving stats like baseball WAR. They compare a player work to the average player and weigh productive yards higher than garbage yards and Graham is #28 TE in DVOA. The guy stinks.
In this deal Graham was the HUGE winner; sorry Smokey, I love ya, the GB GM was a big time LOSER.