Who Plays What?

The money standoff between the New Orleans Saints and Jimmy Graham has brought up the question: "What is a tight end?" Well, to start, Jimmy Graham is a tight end. He may produce yards and touchdowns more like a receiver but he is a tight end. He produces like a receiver because he plays tight end. The Saints argued that Graham is a tight end because of the manner in which a defense plays against him. Tight ends draw the coverage of linebackers and safeties. Graham draws the coverage of linebackers and safeties. The Saints, and teams with explosive tight ends like Graham, use their tight ends to help reveal the coverage of the defense. These versatile playmakers force defenses to show zone or man-to-man defenses before the snap. The battle between the Saints and Graham is stupid. It's stupid because it's all about money. The team and player should come to an agreement based on the importance of the player to the team and not based on the position that he plays. There's really no argument that Graham is right behind Drew Brees in his impact on the Saints offense. The real important part of this argument and it's really no argument at all is the role that Graham, and tight ends like him, are playing in the evolution of football. This evolution didn't start with Graham, Rob Gronkowski, or Jordan Cameron. It didn't even start with Shannon Sharpe or Tony Gonzalez. It goes back decades to the emergence of players like Mike Ditka and John Mackey. Kellen Winslow and Ozzie Newsome. Those early extraordinary tight ends may have blocked more in a single game than Graham blocks in a couple of seasons but they made big pass catchers an offensive threat. Tight end is an evolving position and Graham and the rest are simply part of that evolution. Just like what was once a blocking back is now a quarterback, positions evolve in football. Positions evolve as the game evolves. We once had a middle guard on defense. He stepped away from the line and we found a middle linebacker. The 3-4 defenses of today are really the 5-2 defenses of yesterday. The fullback was once the primary running threat in most offenses. Now, few teams even employ a fullback. The evolution of the tight end is forcing an evolution of the safety position. Teams are looking for safeties that are more like corners in coverage. Football evolves.Positions evolve. Sometimes we even get new ones.

Offensive and defensive innovators and the unique skills of special football players are constantly changing the game. Clark Shaughnessy, Greasy Neale, Tom Landry, Don Coryell, Don Hutson, Sammy Baugh, Lenny Moore, Ditka, Curley Culp, Lawrence Taylor, and so many others brought changes in the game. They did new and different things because they could. Football has always been a game of match-ups. It's a never-ending quest to find mismatches among those match-ups. It's just sad when positions, their distinctions and their importance, are determined and separated by money. Football should define the positions on the field. Not money. It's time to just get rid of the franchise tags. They came about to restrict player movement when free agency changed the business-side of the game. The tags now produce only drama.