Seahawks don’t miss Jimmy Graham one bit, are back on their game
The Seahawks lost Jimmy Graham to free agency and got better on offense. That’s not how the national storyline was supposed to go, so how did it happen?
Remember all the gnashing of teeth when the Seahawks let Jimmy Graham walk after the 2017 season? There must have been a hundred stories you could title “Who replaces Graham in the red zone?” For the record, we weren’t too concerned about it here. Graham is a very good player, but his reputation was largely a product of the Saints offensive system.
Take another look at his stats for Green Bay if you disagree. As our friend Brian Sampson wrote for The Dairyland Express, the former Pro Bowler has been a major disappointment this year. Graham himself knows how bad his season with the Packers has been. I’m not sure why he hasn’t figured it out yet, but it’s obvious to everyone else that your stats are going to look better when you get 140 targets than when you see 90.
Let me reiterate something here. I am not knocking Graham. He was a very good player, and still is. He just isn’t one of the league’s best, and never really was. I guarantee you that any tight end that sees that many targets will be in the Pro Bowl too. Zach Ertz, Travis Kelce, George Kittle, and Eric Ebron lead the NFL in targets among tight ends. All four are in the Pro Bowl. They’re all excellent players, to be sure. But if they got targeted 60 times instead of 100, they’d be watching the game from home, just like Graham will.
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What’s important to the Seahawks is what their tight ends have done in 2018. Let’s add up the stats of Ed Dickson, Nick Vannett and Will Dissly. I’m sure you remember that Dickson and Dissly in particular were renowned for their blocking skills. Receiving ability was supposed to just be an afterthought for these guys. Turns out they’ve been even more effective than Graham ever was. At first glance, that may sound crazy, but read on.