Blogger intel on Max Unger and Brandon Browner

As always I try to get insider info anytime the Saints add a new player that i’m not as familiar with. The first person I reached out to immediately after the Jimmy Graham trade was my buddy Chris who I have a long history of football interaction with. He’s too cool and busy to blog these days but at his worst he was the best Seahawks blogger out there and he still tweets about them all the time at @30AcreFortress. You should follow him, he’s a great dude and very thoughtful about football. Hey, even though he’s a Seahawk fan I still like the guy, so he must be pretty awesome to counteract that. I asked him to give me a few sentences on Unger and he gave me a novel, cause he’s awesome like that. Here’s what he had to say:

Ooooookay. Deep breaths. Hi there, Saints fans, it’s your old buddy some guy in Seattle. I’ve been asked to give you a little blurb on my old buddy Maxwell McCandless Unger (side note: always know athletes’ middle names, because they are almost universally amusing). Let’s get into it:

Strengths:

Unger was one of, I believe, three guys who were Seahawks under the Jim L. Mora era and the Peter Clay Carroll era (see, middle names? “Clay”? C’mon), and was the first guy to get re-signed under Carroll. Since 2009, Unger has been at the heart of Seattle’s line, and despite the general awfulness of said line, that’s still an accomplishment.

He’s a lighter, leaner guy who came up under Chip Kelly’s system in Oregon and has learned under a slew of top OL coaches in Seattle — Alex Gibbs and Tom Cable being at the top of the list. Despite his size, he holds up incredibly well at the point of attack and understands leverage well; his primary asset, however, is his intelligence and awareness. 

Unger has been in charge of all line calls and most protections during Russell (Carrington!) Wilson’s three year career. Losing Unger will put more on Wilson’s plate, and that’s been an issue in the recent past (Unger missed 8 games last year). While the replacement centers were able to fill in fairly well physically, the whiffed protections were embarrassing for all parties involved. Sometimes you got the feeling the DTs wanted to just kinda two-hand-touch Wilson down for fairness. 

Weaknesses:

Health. I mean, that’s pretty much it. I am not an X’s and O’s guy enough to tell you all the intricate details of how Unger works in different blocking schemes, but the Seahawks have been one of the more pure zone-blocking teams since Mora took over. If the Saints rely more on power, which I believe they have in the past, but I might be totally wrong. Great, authoritative writing there, imho. 

But yeah, health. That’s the thing. Unger seems injured more often than not, but when he is healthy and able, there’s scarcely a better center in the game. The Seahawks have focused so heavily on the run that this is where Unger has really shined (Lynch averaged 1+ yard per carry with Unger in last season), but in earlier iterations of the offense, he held up well in the pass game. 

Intangibles:

Unger is a super chill dude. He’s hilarious on radio spots, a prankster in the locker room, and by all appearances seems like a very low-key, good dude. I’m super hesitant to ever say that about an athlete (Hey, how ya doin’ Darren Sharper/Ray Rice/Ray McDonald/Lofa Tatupu/etc etc etc), but I’ve met Unger twice so I’ll pretend like that is representative of his entire existence. Seems fair to me.

Middle name. Okay, finally, McCandless, which is probably a family name or something, is a cool name. “Hi, I’m Max. My dad was Keith Unger but my mom’s family made their fortune selling votives at a national fast food establishment.” Cool, Max. Cool. 

Beard. He has one, and it’s a good beard. Good beard, Max. 

Uninvited conclusion:

At any rate, I can only sympathize with how I imagine Saints fans are feeling. You’ve lost Jimmy Graham. Jimmy Graham is in fact quite a talented young man, and has proven his mettle time and time again with Mr. Drew Christopher Brees. But, alas, have you noticed anything about Jimmy Graham? Yeah, exactly. No middle name. What’s the deal? 

So, I can’t resolve that sadness / frustration / rage. What I can say is that we in Seattle actually experienced much the same reaction when we heard we were losing Unger. Max Unger is a member of this community, he’s a great player, and a hell of an addition to any offensive line, especially in the interior where the Saints’ live or die thanks to Brees’ diminutive stature. So, does it suck? No. But it will probably feel like it sucks. And the Saints got WAY less sexy, which feels like it sucks, but often does not suck. 

Phew, ok, did you make it out of that one alive? Unfortunately I’m not allowed to share with you what Chris’s last name is, and I have no earthly idea what his middle name is. But my middle name is Lalande… so I’m glad he didn’t know that when he dove into this because this could have taken an ugly turn. Many thanks to Chris for the time spent on this, very informative.

So then we have Brandon Browner. For this I went to @PatriotsSB49 (or 50, I don’t know, who’s counting really?). We’ve known each other for a while now too, at least online, and I can promise you he is the Pats expert. We also share a mild to quite strong appreciation for Nick Underhill depending on the day. His opinion on the Saints’s first free agent signing of 2015:

Your fans will love him. Tone setter. Leader. All grit and balls. Breaks the will of his opponents with his physicality.The flags are just the cost of doing business. Half of them are BS reputation calls.