Jimmy Graham returns. Seahawks’ O-line has been wrecked since trading Max Unger to get him
Jimmy Graham is coming back to Seattle, this time with the Chicago Bears.
You remember him. Barely.
Graham was a year and a half removed from being named All-Pro as a dynamic tight end for the New Orleans Saints, a match-up nightmare for defenses, when the Seahawks traded for him. That was before the 2015 season.
Graham’s return Sunday when his sunken Bears (4-10) play his former Seahawks (5-9) brings reminders of what he was — and wasn’t — in his three seasons with Seattle. Now 35 years old Graham is a bit, role player for Chicago. He has 10 receptions in 12 games, and no more than two catches in any one game. He’s played just 27% of the Bears offensive snaps this season, his second year for Chicago after two, mostly underwhelming seasons in Green Bay.
In Seattle, he showed flashes of what he’d been with the Saints. But mostly, he was a disappointment. He missed five games of his first Seahawks season. While he had 10 touchdown catches from Russell Wilson in their second season together, Graham never came close to the 99-, 86- and 85-catch seasons he had with New Orleans. The 6-foot-7, 259-pound tight end who liked to be a wide receiver was also a liability as a blocker — in that, he preferred not to do it.
The Seahawks let his $10-million-per-year contract end without re-signing him following the 2017 season. He signed a three-year, $30 million deal with the Packers. Green Bay released him in March 2020 rather than pay him the third year of that deal.
What’s gone largely overlooked around Seattle when talking about all Graham was not for the Seahawks: the massively important player Seattle sent away to to get him. Seattle gave New Orleans Max Unger, the Seahawks’ two-time Pro Bowl center, plus a first-round choice in the 2015 NFL draft.
That move has affected the Seahawks’ offense and entire team ever since.
On the day of the huge trade for Graham, March 10, 2015, The News Tribune wrote: “Unger was the foundation of an at-times shaky Seahawks offensive line, its chief communicator who had a strong bond with Wilson. Unger has two years remaining on the contract he signed before the 2012 season. The Seahawks drafted him in the second round in 2009 out of Oregon. His base salary for this year is $4.5 million.”
Indeed, back then Seahawks general manager John Schneider cited financial considerations as a sizable factor in making the trade.
The team released tight end Zach Miller as part of the moves to get Graham. Essentially the Seahawks added just $2.2 million to their 2015 salary cap to get an All-Pro receiver. At the time, it seemed like a coup.
But Unger leaving took the foundational, Super Bowl-champion centerpiece and signal caller out of the all-important offensive line. Unger held down the Seahawks center spot for four seasons through two Super Bowls. He plowed for running back Marshawn Lynch. He protected Wilson. He anchored one of the strengths of the team. And Unger was popular in the locker room. Wilson loved him.
The Seahawks’ offensive line has mostly been in shambles since they traded him away.
Wilson has not loved that.
Seven different centers
Center has become for Wilson and the Seahawks something like what left field was for Ken Griffey Jr. when he was MVP-ing in center field for baseball’s Mariners.
In the seven seasons since the team traded Unger, Seattle has had seven different starting centers: Patrick Lewis, Drew Nowak, Justin Britt, Joey Hunt, Ethan Pocic, Damien Lewis and Kyle Fuller.
Lewis and Nowak job-shared the season after Unger left, with Lewis injuring his knee and ankle. Britt had an uneven season starting at guard as a rookie in 2015, so the team moved him to center to replace Lewis and Nowak in 2016.
Britt was the most successful of the seven centers since Unger. Seattle gave him a three-year, $27 million contract in 2017. The Seahawks cut him after he tore knee ligaments during the 2019 season. He didn’t play a game for any team in 2020. He started at center for the Texans against Seattle two weeks ago in Houston.
They had three starters at center in 2020: Pocic, Damien Lewis and Fuller. All were guards converted to the position, in Lewis’ case for just one game as an injury fill-in last season. Pocic failed to break into the lineup as a tackle and a guard his first three NFL seasons after the Seahawks drafted him in the second round. He’s now the starting center, back to his college position at LSU.
Fuller had the job to begin this season, his first time as a full-time center since 2016 when he was playing for Baylor University. The Seahawks benched Fuller after seven games, and put Pocic back at center.
All the while, Wilson became the league’s most sacked quarterback through his first nine seasons. Thursday, Wilson said when asked about the effect of trading Unger: “We had guys step in. We shuffled some centers around this and that, which is a very important position.”
Unger went on after the trade to be the Saints’ starting center for four seasons. In his final one, 2018 at age 32, he made the Pro Bowl for the third time.
He announced his retirement from football in March 2019, after 10 NFL seasons.
“I think that Max was one of the best centers in the game,” Wilson said Thursday.
“Max was so professional with it every day. He brought everything to the table, and he was an absolute star at the position.
“I think Jimmy was really special for us too, like I said, he scored 10 touchdowns in one year and did so many great things in the community. Those guys were amazing community people and guys who really cared. I was fortunate to be able to play with an incredible talent in Max Unger, and with an incredible talent with Jimmy Graham.
“That’s the thing about sports, it’s constant change and constant moving. So you may get close and play with a guy for a long time, then another guy moves. Those guys were ultimate pros and amazing at what they did.”
No investments in center
Since dealing away Unger the Seahawks have traded with Houston to get veteran Pro Bowl left tackle Duane Brown, then re-signed him. They’ve signed free agent Brandon Shell to be the new right tackle. They’ve drafted Damien Lewis in the second round in 2020 to be a new starting guard. They traded with Las Vegas this spring to make veteran Gabe Jackson the other starting guard with Lewis.
But for center? Zilch.
Coach Pete Carroll and GM Schneider have decided to re-purpose players they already had from other positions rather than invest in a new center.
Last March, despite more than $17 million in salary-cap space available, the Seahawks declined to enter the free-agent derby for top veteran centers Cory Linsley (who signed for a whopping $62.5 million with the Los Angeles Chargers) and Alex Mack. Mack signed with the division-rival San Francisco 49ers for $14.5 million over three years.
Carroll and Schneider also decided against drafted top college centers that were available when Seattle chose for the first time in round two of last spring’s draft. The Seahawks drafted speedy wide receiver Dee Eskridge at 56th overall. Creed Humphrey, a highly regarded center from the University of Oklahoma, went seven picks later to defending AFC-champion Kansas City.
Humphrey has started every game for the playoff-bound Chiefs at center this season.
Eskridge missed two months into November with a serious concussion. He’s been a bit player as a third and fourth wide receiver in his rookie season for Seattle, which will finish a season with a losing record for the first time since 2011.
Friday, Carroll was asked the impact trading Unger had on his offensive line.
The coach laughed.
“That’s a good one, man,” Carroll said.
“Max did an incredibly good job of staying healthy and played a couple more years after that. He really captured the durability that he was hoping for.”
Carroll intimated Friday that he and Schneider had calculated in 2015 Unger’s health was enough of a concern the Seahawks felt OK parting with him to get Graham. Unger had missed 10 games in Seattle’s 2014 Super Bowl season. He sustained a leg injury in November 2015, though he played on.
“We were worried about him at the time. I can’t remember the specifics of it,” Carroll said of Unger and injuries. “But I thought that Max was a great player and a great member of our club.
“To lose him was a big loss at the time, as many of the guys were, but that was really significant because of his leadership qualities and his toughness.
“He was a good ball player, man.”
This story was originally published December 24, 2021 at 4:32 PM with the headline "Jimmy Graham returns. Seahawks’ O-line has been wrecked since trading Max Unger to get him."
