Graham factor will aid Hawks

The Jimmy Graham factor is real, and by adding him in a trade two months ago the Seahawks are daring teams to make a choice.

Graham is one of the NFL’s elite tight ends, and he is a matchup nightmare for safeties who aren’t big enough to hang with him or linebackers who aren’t fast enough to run with him. But one of Graham’s subtler effects is forcing teams to defend him differently, and here is where things get interesting for the Seahawks.

Graham played with solid running backs in New Orleans, but none the caliber of Marshawn Lynch. He played with Drew Brees, but not with a mobile quarterback like Russell Wilson. The complementary nature of those skills – Lynch’s relentlessness, Wilson’s scrambling, Graham’s stretch-the-field threat – presents seemingly endless possibilities.

Will teams play three traditional linebackers to stop Lynch and take their chances in coverage with Graham? Or will defenses play five defensive backs and take their chances with Lynch?

“What we ended up finding after a couple of years was that most teams played us in nickel defense when Jimmy was in the game no matter who else was in,” said Terry Malone, Graham’s longtime position coach with the Saints. “They had adjustments for him in particular, and a lot of times we would not see these adjustments even against other really skilled tight ends.”

The Seahawks have used the running game as heavily as any NFL team the past few years, and at their best they let Lynch wear down defenses and use play-action to break them with big plays. Graham can expose gaps in defenses down the middle if they bite on play-action, and he excels at going up high and making catches.

“Let’s just talk about the specifics: The combination of Marshawn Lynch, Russell Wilson and Jimmy Graham is almost not fair,” former NFL fullback Heath Evans said. “People hear play-action, but they don’t really know what it does or the dynamic effect of having a running back like Marshawn and a mobile running quarterback like Russell. There’s so many different dimensions of having to not only cover Jimmy but cover the space that’s created because of the play-action game.”

Malone can only laugh.

“I think defenses are going to have to make a tough choice,” he said.

Teams usually have loaded up at the line of scrimmage to stop Lynch, and though that has benefited the Seahawks’ receivers, it has made life tougher on Lynch.

Graham poses a new dilemma for defenses, and he and Lynch could benefit each other equally.

“What that does is just create space in the defensive backfield,” Evans said.