Jimmy Graham gives Seattle Seahawks added dimension in rematch with New England Patriots
BOSTON – It’s been nearly two years since the Seahawks played the Patriots.
Yet, still, it’s a rare day Darrell Bevell isn’t thinking about – and being haunted by – his final play call of Super Bowl 49.
“Of course. It’s a terrible memory,” Seattle’s offensive coordinator said this past week. “Every time it comes up it just sticks in your gut.”
“It,” of course, is Bevell’s call for Russell Wilson to throw a slant to slot, third wide receiver Ricardo Lockett from New England’s 1-yard line with 26 seconds left and the Seahawks down 28-24. Sorry to remind you that instead of handing the ball to Marshawn Lynch, Wilson threw the infamous pass the Patriots’ Malcolm Butler intercepted just inside the goal line to snatch victory from Seattle, which would have won its second consecutive Super Bowl.
“It’s a new season it was two years ago. It’s something that’s always there it’s something I’ve grown from, something that I learned from,” Bevell said. “But that isn’t going away.
“It’s always going to be there.”
Sunday night the play caller, the quarterback and 18 other Seahawks that played in that epic Super Bowl will get their rematch against the Patriots in a national showdown down the road from Seattle’s south Boston hotel, at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts.
But Bevell, Wilson and the Seahawks have a weapon for this one they didn’t have on Feb. 1, 2015, in Glendale, Arizona. If they had, they could have thrown it to this giant dominator on the goal line instead.
But Jimmy Graham played for the Saints then.
He could be Seattle’s savior now.
Graham is coming off his most spectacular game in two seasons since the Seahawks traded a pricey sum for him. His two one-handed catches for touchdowns in the first half led Monday night’s 31-25 win over Buffalo.
“He’s making a statement,” fellow Seahawks receiver Jermaine Kearse said. “He is showing the world he is the same Jimmy Graham.”
More important, he’s showed Wilson what Drew Brees knew about Graham for years in New Orleans: the quarterback can trust him to catch whatever he throws his way. That’s whether or not he’s covered, whether a defender is holding Graham’s arm as a Bills cover man was on each of his touchdown catches.
Wilson’s trust is finally showing up during games, 20 months after the Seahawks traded two-time Pro Bowl center Max Unger plus a first-round draft pick to New Orleans to get Graham, 12 months after Graham tore the patellar tendon in his knee and two months since he returned to the field fully from that setback.
After eight catches for 103 yards and those two touchdowns against Buffalo Monday, he’s motivated.
“When the ball is in the air … I think of all those days I had this offseason and all those moments I had when I wasn’t out there,” Graham said. “I think more of want-to than anything.
“For me (now), it’s one of those things where I cherish every second on the field … because of how it was taken away from me – at times not knowing if I’d get it back.”
The Patriots are ranked 15th in the NFL in total defense and 18th in pass defense. They – like every team Seattle faces – don’t have a 6-foot-7, 270-pound college basketball power forward to match up eye to eye with Graham.
That’s a literally huge advantage Seattle has over New England that it didn’t have in Super Bowl 49.
As for the bigger picture, this showdown of NFL titans and beyond, the Seahawks are entering the crux of their season that in previous years has been decisively successful for them.
“Now, to get some momentum going into the second half of the season, that’s huge for us,” Graham said. “The season is made in November and December.