“[Michael] Bennett was also asked about the team’s trade for [Jimmy] Graham, who he famously labeled ‘soft’ and ‘overrated’ following a playoff game in 2014.
‘I still feel the same way,’ Bennett said. ‘Just because he’s on my team I don’t stop feeling that way. Obviously I’m going to be a better teammate to him because he’s on my team. I can’t do the things I was doing to him when we were playing him. But obviously when he comes to our team he’s a part of our team so we have a different philosophy than they had with the Saints so the things he was expected to do with the Saints are going to be different when he comes here. Obviously we are a running team so he is going to have to block and do all those things. I don’t feel as harsh as I did at the time because he’s my teammate now. But at the time he was on the opposite team and were pretty good and we battled with him a couple of times and I didn’t really like that team.” – Paragraph from Bob Condotta’s article, “Michael Bennett surfaces on 710 ESPN Seattle, says he never asked for a trade and talks about Jimmy Graham” on seattletimes.com
(Sigh) Why can’t all athletes just be friends? Why can’t they all just get together, drink some tea and share BFF bracelets? The answer is simple – that’s not reality and that’s not sports. Seattle Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett’s comments on 710 AM ESPN Seattle raised a few eyebrows when he re-confirmed his opinion about newly acquired teammate, TE Jimmy Graham, with the “soft” label. With the 2015-2016 season approaching, this could be much ado about nothing. For the Seahawk’s financial sake, hopefully it is.
In the 2013-14 season, the Seahawks played the New Orleans Saints in the divisional round of the NFC playoffs, which resulted in the victory of the Hawks. However, during pre-game warm-ups, Graham and OLB Bruce Irvin engaged in a war of words, incited by Seahawk players confronting Graham for attempting to warm-up on the Seahawk side of the field. After the game, Michael Bennett let his exact sentiments of Graham’s toughness known to the media by calling him, “one of the softest players in the NFL.”
Personally, I enjoy this. In a sport that is being pushed more and more to showcase public displays of friendship and staged PC interviews, this particular situation highlights the true mentality of athletes, the mentality that respect is gold in a football locker room. Football is a sport where being respected is the driving force for each participant. R-E-S-P-E-C-T feeds the bravado, ego, & performance of each player, and it, most importantly, is the glue that holds any locker room together.
From another perspective, Michael Bennett’s words could be viewed as a challenge for Graham to earn the respect of his new teammates. We can almost guarantee that Bennett isn’t the only one who questions the toughness of the new tight end or forgotten the pre-game incident. (“He may need to catch that Jimmy fade.”- Bruce Irvin) this upcoming season will tell us a lot about the 3-time pro bowler. Not only does he have to prove that he can transition from a finesse offense to an offense with a smash-mouth mindset, he must also prove that he is worth every penny spent to the critics wearing the same jersey as him.
The only apprehension I have here is the slight possibility of this could financially turn into Percy Harvin 2.0. When the Hawks acquired the explosive playmaker in 2013 for a whopping 6-year, $67 million deal with $25 million guaranteed, he was described as the x-factor to winning the Super Bowl. (You can debate on how big Harvin’s impact was on the Super Bowl. During his tenure in the regular season, he had 23 receptions for 150 yds and 0 touchdowns). Multiple incidents lead to Harvin’s departure, his performance, brewing division in the locker room he caused, and frustration in his role in the offense lending to rumored disputes with QB Russell Wilson. This proved to be too much for the Hawks to withstand, so they took a hit in the pockets for $18.3 million by trading away Harvin to preserve the locker room chemistry.
The Seahawks cannot afford this to occur with Jimmy Graham (who will earn $11 million under his current contract) because if this situation with Bennett does cause any type of divide in the locker room, the team would once again have to eat another big contract, lose a definite upgrade in the TE position, lose C Max Unger for nothing, and jeopardize the flexibility of retaining players who will become free agents after this season. You can have a debate that if the Jimmy Graham experience fizzles, the losses would outweigh those of Harvin’s.
Respect is paramount to the success of a team. Fortunately, signs of amends seem to have been made are already with a recent Instagram picture of Graham and Bruce Irvin mocking the situation. Bennett and Graham play on opposing sides of the ball, so any effects of any lingering animosity will not play itself out that much. OTA’s should be quite interesting.
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