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Bill Barnwell of Grantland weighs in on the trade. Some relevant parts of his piece are included below:
http://grantland.com/the-triangle/the-n ... ent-where/
Barnwell acknowledges that Graham's contract is going to be a little unwieldy for the Hawks, and suggests that it may force an either/or choice between Graham and Lynch in 2016. But he also talks about why Unger was included:
And he sounds more than a little concerned about the Saints:
http://grantland.com/the-triangle/the-n ... ent-where/
Using the Draft Pick Value Calculator generated by Chase Stuart at Football Perspective, we can estimate the difference in value between the two draft picks. We also have to guess where New Orleans’s draft pick will land, since compensatory picks have yet to be handed out, but it should come within one or two slots of the 110th overall pick. Using those figures, the balance of what the Seahawks sent amounts to the equivalent of the 65th pick in the draft — the first pick of the third round. That certainly sounds a lot less dramatic than dealing a first-round pick for a fourth-rounder.
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While his background is obviously unconventional, the Seahawks don’t need to do anything extraordinary to get Graham involved. They’re going to throw the same sort of seam passes that Wilson would throw to Zach Miller and Luke Willson in the past, just more often and with more success. Graham is going to be a nightmare for teams that try to push a safety in the box to stop Marshawn Lynch, because there are only about a dozen players on the planet who can cover Graham one-on-one, and two of them happen to play for his new team.
Barnwell acknowledges that Graham's contract is going to be a little unwieldy for the Hawks, and suggests that it may force an either/or choice between Graham and Lynch in 2016. But he also talks about why Unger was included:
A Pro Bowl–caliber center who has struggled to stay healthy in recent seasons, the 28-year-old Unger was just about due for a new deal. He was entering the third year of a four-year, $26 million extension that has relatively docile cap hits of $4.5 million in both 2015 and 2016. After that, a healthy Unger would have likely expected to see his cap hit double, pointing to the Alex Mack deal as a comparable contract. Seattle couldn’t afford to give Unger that much money, and in trading him now, it was able to get a serious asset who upgraded them at a more meaningful position.
And he sounds more than a little concerned about the Saints:
For the Saints, this is a serious repudiation of their all-in philosophy from a year ago and the quality of the team Sean Payton and Mickey Loomis thought they had built. I wrote about their cap woes in December, and while I pointed out the accounting method that would enable them to overcome their $27 million nightmare and get underneath the hard cap, there wasn’t going to be much space to reshape their franchise.
New Orleans had already cut Curtis Lofton and Pierre Thomas this offseason, but to make serious changes to its roster in the years to come, it was going to have to carve one or two of the top salaries off the books. One of those players, apparently, was Graham. While the Saints get $19 million in cap relief over 2016 and 2017, they don’t actually save any money in 2015. With the dead money on his deal, Graham’s cap hold actually rises from $8 million to $9 million. The Saints then add the $4.5 million on Unger’s deal to their 2015 cap, and they’ll also owe an extra $750,000 or so for the salary difference between the draft picks they just traded.
After battling so hard to get underneath the cap of $143 million, New Orleans is already nearly $3 million over the cap. Loomis suggested after the trade that he made the deal to improve New Orleans’s defense, which certainly makes it strange that he traded Graham for a center and not a defensive player.
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To say the Saints players aren’t taking this well might be an understatement. Brees noted afterward that he was shocked by the trade and ” … loved [Graham].” Cornerback Keenan Lewis publicly said he wanted the remaining three years of his contract guaranteed or wanted to be released, which ranks right up there with “Operation Shutdown” as far as hollow, leverage-less threats go. The Saints brought in Tramon Williams for a visit last night, but they’ll have to convince him to work with a very strict, player-unfriendly contract structure to come to New Orleans. They’ll also have to convince him he isn’t coming to a team that’s falling apart.