The New Orleans Saints slapped the franchise tag on all-world tight end Jimmy Graham on Monday. However, it wasn’t the exclusive-rights franchise tag, meaning that if another team wanted to sign Graham there’s still a slight chance they could.
They’d have to give the Saints two first-round picks as compensation and give Graham a fat, long-term deal. Someone suggested the Green Bay Packers would be the perfect team to do so, considering they have a need at tight end $33 million in cap space. Plus, they’re always picking at the end of the first round anyway because they’re always in the playoffs. Losing two first-round picks isn’t as damaging for the Packers as it is if you’re a perennial top-five-pick team like the Cleveland Browns.
Oh, and when I say someone, I’m referring to ESPN court jester Adam Schefter.
If I'm the Seattle Seahawks or Green Bay Packers, I'm willing to sign TE Jimmy Graham to an offer sheet and to give up two 1's to get him.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) March 3, 2014
As dreamy as Graham would look in the Green and Gold, that isn’t happening. Anyone who knows how much general manager Ted Thompson covets draft picks could have told you that.
Mike Freeman confirmed as much.
A Packers official did tell me the idea of Green Bay salvaging its future for a tight end was “dumb beyond dumb… won’t happen.”
So stop dreaming.
Thompson is currently devising schemes that will allow him to turn this year’s first-round pick into two thirds, three fifths and eight sevenths.
You can never have enough draft picks! We’re bound to hit on one of these guys if we pick in volume!
Team has way bigger needs on defense to overpay a tight end!
Not to mention a TE who can’t block.
Adam Schefter isn’t worth his weight in ground chuck.
I hate to be a dick…but…I told ya so.
“Dumb beyond dumb” is an understatement.
It is a pretty good debate which team is a more idiotic notion in that tweet.
Green Bay – With Ted Thompson at the helm…
or
Seattle – Who just won a Super Bowl without a big time TE and don’t have a lot of cap space to work with
Good. Graham is a good player but as others have pointed out, it looked like he had no heart in the Seattle game. His production also seems to take a dramatic drop when he’s playing outdoors in the cold.
he’s no Paul Coffman by golly!
he was hurt vs. Seasttle. Guy was playen with a Lis Franc or some shit
“salvaging”??? Giving up two firsts and making a humongous financial commitment is pretty much the opposite of salvaging. I think he meant “mortgaging”, but he could just as easily have said “sinking” or “dynamiting”. An idiotic notion that only gets floated because Schefter needed to tweet something today.
and that, folks, is why Adam Schefter works for ESPN and not an NFL personnel department.
Even I thought the notion was ridiculous. And I am the best self appointed Packers GM ever.