NFL Spin Zone
Fansided

Jimmy Graham can’t even pretend to block

By Kevin Parvizi

facebooktwitterreddit

Seattle Seahawks star tight end Jimmy Graham has been a non-factor to this point in his team’s Monday Night Football clash at home against the 0-3 Detroit Lions, as he’s managed to catch just two passes for 19 yards on three targets. Darrell Bevell and the Seahawks have once again failed to get him involved frequently in their offense, and that’s helped lead to his disappointing day on the stat sheet. Graham seemed to have an incredibly favorable matchup on paper against a Lions defense that has struggled at defending TEs today, but that hasn’t been the case.

ALSO ON SPIN ZONE: Where Does Graham Rank Among Best TEs?

Graham’s low usage was the story back in Week 2 when he caught just one pass for 11 yards against the Green Bay Packers quietly staunch pass defense, and it has been a story in today’s game against the Lions. However, it isn’t the only negative story surrounding Graham, because he’s also drawn the ire of some for continued blocking issues.

Although Graham would like to make us think that he’s a good blocker, it just simply isn’t a strength of his. He’s amazing at many other things, including catching touchdown passes and making tough catches in traffic, so the Seahawks should ask him to do that stuff instead of blocking out of the slot or even playing in pass protection. The Seahawks have wanted to add blocking to the big, athletic TE’s plate, but it looks like they should stop trying to making him be something that he’s not.

That’s the specific play that has caused Twitter jeers and eyerolls, and Jimmy Graham really could have done a better job of pretending to do his job as a blocker here. Considering that he doesn’t run a route after engaging the defender, it’s safe to say that his responsibility was supposed to be to block for surprise UDFA rookie Thomas Rawls, who has struggled today after rushing for over 100 yards against the Chicago Bears in Week 3.

Instead of blocking, it looked like Graham pushed linebacker Travis Lewis, who is questionable to return with an ankle injury, into Rawls’s direction, resulting in a huge loss for the offense that makes Rawls’s stat sheet at 11 carries for 23 yards look even worse than it should be.

It’s a dreadful attempt at blocking that won’t cause any critics to calm down, even though they will unfairly forget the fact that he had six catches for 51 yards and a TD in Week 1 and seven catches for 83 yards and a TD against Chicago in Week 3. Graham isn’t a good blocker and should be used more often by the Seahawks, but he has still been a big factor in this offense, even if he’s been pretty much absent from today’s game, other than a couple of catches and a cringe-worth play in the running game.

Next: The Best Rookie Seasons in NFL History

More from NFL Spin Zone

Home/Seattle Seahawks