official Jimmy Graham signed

[GleefulGary]

Graham was not my TE of choice, but to those pointing at the draft class, it needs to be considered that TE is a notoriously hard position to get quality rookie play at.

Stop copying my posts.

 

[brandon2348]

Just wait until we add Courtland Sutton to the mix. Mismatches all over the place.

 

[ThePerfectBeard]

Guys. Stop talking about rookie TE's.

1) We'll still probably draft one.

2) Rookie TE's rarely make an impact in year one.

3) This rookie TE class has depth, but not a lot of top end talent. They are almost all raw and need to be developed.

There are certainly reasons to not like this deal, but the rookie class isn't one of them. We needed a TE1. We got one.

I agree to a point. Receiving rookie tight ends that aren't asked to block see the field much quicker, but I get your point. I'm kind of hoping with this signing we get Gesicki and let him learn behind Graham. He could be a similar player and add blocking on top of it.

 

[HardRightEdge]

Just wait until we add Courtland Sutton to the mix. Mismatches all over the place.

Graham and Cobb (if he's still around) are slot palyers. Throw Montgomery into the mix as a part-time slot receiver.

There's a hole at wideout in a wideout-centric offense. I like Sutton, but I'm skeptical he's right for the receiver mix in place. There is at least one big hole at CB, maybe two. CB/WR must be high priorities as it stands now.

Cobb and Matthews are still overpaid, and Bulaga may be a health risk. More holes to come, with more cap but contracting FA options?

 

[brandon2348]

Graham and Cobb (if he's still around) are slot palyers. Throw Montgomery into the mix as a part-time slot receiver.

There's a hole at wideout in a wideout-centric offense. I like Sutton, but I'm skeptical he's right for the receiver mix in place. There is at least one big hole at CB, maybe two. CB/WR must be high priorities as it stands now.

Cobb and Matthews are still overpaid, and Bulaga may be a health risk. More holes to come, with more cap but contracting FA options.

Sign Mo Claiborne and draft Jaire Alexander and Courtland Sutton and we be good. Packers have draft capital available to easily pull that off with remaining firepower to bolster OL and LB.

 

[C-Lee]

[TWEET]https://twitter.com/by_JBH/status/973777133087555584?s=19[/TWEET]

Not mad at the money

 

[OldSchool101]

That’s about expected $ wise.

This is going to be nice having a big Gronkish like TE to toss it to.
Now we need a DJ Chark kinda deep threat WR to open things up underneath.

 

[RRyder]

[TWEET]https://twitter.com/by_JBH/status/973777133087555584?s=19[/TWEET]

Not mad at the money

Not bad money wise? Wtf is wrong with people.

He has to turn into Gronk for that deal not to suck. Even then that's ALOT to pay a TE on the wrong side of 30. Much less comming off his last couple years

 

[RRyder]

This is the type of deal that if ANY other team signs him too people would almost unanimously say they're just happy it wasn't the Packers paying him that.

Well congratulations. We are that team now. Hope the "all in" crowd is happy

 

[elcid]

Man I really dont get some people. We all know the principle of overspending on the top FA at a position. So everyone must had seen it coming that if the Pack were to want Graham, they would have to (somewhat) overspend. Now maybe he should have made 8M per year, maybe he makes 6M during his contract that he can never live up to so to speak, even in the best circumstances. But you cant want the best FAs on the market and not expect to pay up for it. No one is gonna come and give GB a discount because its GB and because Arod is our qb. Im just happy to see Gutekunst making moves and understanding the value of Arods small window for another SB.

But we finally got ourselves a top tier TE you guys. Our offense just became way more dynamic. I love Jordy but he was clearly aging, whereas for less money we got Graham from who we can still get a few good years probably.

 

[Mondio]

I was coming around to signing Graham and letting Jordy go until I saw this. Crap. Graham hasn't exactly been a stalwart specimen of health and effort over the years either. Heck of a pass catching TE at times, no doubt, but i've always thought he was pretty incomplete as far as TE's go and a tad on the soft side. You can't be soft and catch TD's when it's 10 degrees outside. I hope he earns it, but 11 million per the first 2 years? ouch. He's not 28.

 

[PackerDNA]

Interesting to see how it's structured, and what the hit will be this year.
The offence in Seattle wasn't exactly TE friendly, so let's see what the plan is here.

 

[Ace]

[TWEET]https://twitter.com/by_JBH/status/973777133087555584?s=19[/TWEET]

Not mad at the money

About what I expected, and replaced Jordy's contract with Grahams.

 

[adambr2]

Not bad money wise? Wtf is wrong with people.

He has to turn into Gronk for that deal not to suck. Even then that's ALOT to pay a TE on the wrong side of 30. Much less comming off his last couple years

Trey Burton just got 8M a year from the Bears.

Graham is still the big redzone threat that Rodgers has been lacking most of his career and is not a bad value at 10M per.

 

[Mondio]

I'd rather new contracts with bigger money be going to guys they think are on the upside of their careers than on the downhill side. But both come with risk. Burton may never fulfill what they hope he will become and on the flip side, Graham may not be what he once was. Or maybe they both work

 

[sschind]

Man I really dont get some people. We all know the principle of overspending on the top FA at a position. So everyone must had seen it coming that if the Pack were to want Graham, they would have to (somewhat) overspend. Now maybe he should have made 8M per year, maybe he makes 6M during his contract that he can never live up to so to speak, even in the best circumstances. But you cant want the best FAs on the market and not expect to pay up for it. No one is gonna come and give GB a discount because its GB and because Arod is our qb. Im just happy to see Gutekunst making moves and understanding the value of Arods small window for another SB.

But we finally got ourselves a top tier TE you guys. Our offense just became way more dynamic. I love Jordy but he was clearly aging, whereas for less money we got Graham from who we can still get a few good years probably.

You haven't been around here long elcid so I will forgive you for not knowing this. We are supposed to sign all the top FAs for vet minimum or cheap 1 year prove it deals. Even those willing to open up the wallet a little more never want to dip into the secret stash. From one side of the mouth its "we should sign this guy" or "why didn't we sign that guy" or "we never sign anyone good" while out of the other side its "I'm glad we didn't pay this guy that much" or " he's not worth what they are paying him" or " the guy we got is good enough" In other words no one wants to pay for the top free agents but they all want to complain that we never sign any of the top free agents.

You'll learn

Obviously that is not everybody but they are out there.

 

[Dantés]

If that 22 is the guaranteed portion, then we’re talking about a two year deal, 11/season in reality. I like the length, but not the $. Graham is brittle and limited in his skill set. He may be the most dominant RZ target in the game, but we don’t struggle there. We also cut a big RZ threat to sign him. So the net gain comes down to his position and the fact that they can play both him and Jordy’s replacement at the same time. That’s not nothing, but it’s also not worth the space in my opinion.

Hopefully the FO saw something on tape about how he can still be unlocked in other ways. It’s possible that Bevell wasn’t getting the most out of him. But by and large the Packers were desperate. The hole at the position was glaring and it’s hard to find rookie starters at TE. This at least allows them to draft and develop a successor.

 

[bigbubbatd]

If that 22 is the guaranteed portion, then we’re talking about a two year deal, 11/season in reality. I like the length, but not the $. Graham is brittle and limited in his skill set. He may be the most dominant RZ target in the game, but we don’t struggle there. We also cut a big RZ threat to sign him. So the net gain comes down to his position and the fact that they can play both him and Jordy’s replacement at the same time. That’s not nothing, but it’s also not worth the space in my opinion.

Hopefully the FO saw something on tape about how he can still be unlocked in other ways. It’s possible that Bevell wasn’t getting the most out of him. But by and large the Packers were desperate. The hole at the position was glaring and it’s hard to find rookie starters at TE. This at least allows them to draft and develop a successor.

Where does the brittle part come from? He has only missed more than 1 game in one season. 4 of the last 5 years he has played 16 games.

 

[OldSchool101]

He’s averaged roughly 850 yards and 8.5 TDs and 12YPC per year since coming into the league.
As a comparison Gronk has averaged just shy of 900 yards, 9.5 TDs and 15YPC in that same span. Rob makes about 9M per year but has a 10.9M Cap hit in 2018
This contract payout is pretty average overall
We may have very well lost this deal by trying to save 3M over 3 years or whatever and you ain’t going to sign this caliber player for 5M a year.

 

[bigbubbatd]

I am surprised for the amount of dislike for this move. Graham isnt perfect but he is a tight who can stretch the field. I understand it cost us Jordy who is one of my favorite packers but this team was obviously moving on from Jordy before this signing. They were in on the big free agent wrs right off the bat. They thought Jordy was trending the wrong way.

 

[brandon2348]

I watched every Seahawk game last year and people need to understand that the Seahawks tried to make him something that he is not. They tried to force him into an inline TE and get him to block and work the field from that spot a lot. To Graham' s credit he did improve on his blocking towards the end of the year. He still managed 10 TD's in that system and the Seahawks probably lose at least 3 more games last year if they didn't have them. That's a fact.

People need to understand that when getting a free agent they need to understand the player in a scheme specific situation. I firmly believe the Packers know what Graham is and are gonna use him scheme specific to what he does well that matches the Packers offense. He is basically another WR and IMO a huge upgrade over an aging Nelson. I'm hearing he is slow and while he isn't the burner he was in maybe 2012 He is far from slow like Marty B was. This was a good signing for the Packers.

 

[Beebe82]

If I missed this being posted, I apologize. Jimmy's stats

Year Team GP REC TGTS YDS AVG LNG TD FD FUM LST
2010 NO 16 31 43 357 11.5 52 5 21 1 0
2011 NO 16 99 149 1,310 13.2 59 11 74 1 1
2012 NO 15 85 135 982 11.6 46 9 59 1 0
2013 NO 16 86 144 1,215 14.1 56 16 61 0 0
2014 NO 16 85 124 889 10.5 29 10 54 2 2
2015 SEA 11 48 73 605 12.6 45 2 29 0 0
2016 SEA 16 65 95 923 14.2 42 6 45 2 2
2017 SEA 16 57 98 520 9.1 33 10 32 0 0
Total 121 556 861 6,800 12.2 59 69 375 7 5

There is a massive drop off for Graham when he went from playing with a hall of fame QB with an innovative / pass first play caller to a above average QB with a marginal offensive play caller. McCarthy isn't Sean Payton, but he's a lot closer to him than he is to Bevel. Brees to Wilson is a huge downgrade and Wilson to Rodgers is like going from a top of the line Subaru to the next generation NASCAR car (see what I did there).

His contract doesn't look awesome for the guy that produced the stats he had with the seahawks, but if we get one year of that type of production and 2 years of saints type numbers, it's a huge improvement and a great signing.

 

[Dantés]

Where does the brittle part come from? He has only missed more than 1 game in one season. 4 of the last 5 years he has played 16 games.

He required a lot of maintinence days in Seattle and was clearly slowed by his significant knee injury. Hopefully another year removed from said injury will help him recover more of his former athleticism.

 

[RRyder]

Trey Burton just got 8M a year from the Bears.

Graham is still the big redzone threat that Rodgers has been lacking most of his career and is not a bad value at 10M per.

And because of the contract Allen Robinson got that means the Watkins contract is good.

See the problem there?

This contract is horrible and it's utterly amazing how many people are ok with it.

 

[Sunshinepacker]

Number one reason I'm ok with this signing is because it makes it much easier for MM to run an effective, unimaginative offense. See, if the team didn't have a classic, receiving TE then MM would have to do innovative things on offense and utilize formations and play design to create mismatches and that's just not his thing. This way, the team can stick with his beloved 1/1 sets and he doesn't have to worry about actual play design!