Just like old times, moments before kickoff, Jimmy Graham raised a fist in the air and got the New Orleans Saints fans into a frenzy right before kickoff against the Atlanta Falcons by leading the Who Dat Chant.
Graham, who was honored as the team’s Legend of the Game Sunday and served as guest captain, always relishes a chance to come back to the place that he will always consider home.
“I became a man in this city,” Graham said. “I grew in this city. I learned football in this city. Everything I have in my life, truly, is because of the New Orleans Saints and this city.”
Graham spoke to reporters a couple hours before the game. He walked into the team’s press room, just across the hall from his old locker room, alongside team owner Gayle Benson, team president Dennis Lauscha, General Manager Mickey Loomis and Senior VP of Football Operations Khai Harley.
And one other, of course: Drew Brees was there for Graham, too.
Graham became emotional when asked what it meant to him to have Brees — who served as the color commentator for Sunday’s Saints-Falcons game on the FOX broadcast — in the room.
“Drew is like a brother to me, and I always wish I had more time with him, because of what could have happened,” Graham said.
There was a time Brees and Graham formed one of the NFL’s most lethal duos. One of the NFL’s most precise and prolific passers had the ultimate matchup machine at his disposal, a 6-foot-7 former basketball player who quickly established himself as one of the NFL’s premier pass catchers.
When Graham wrapped up his second season, his star was already fully realized: 99 catches, 1,310 yards, 11 touchdowns. It was the start of one of the greatest four-year runs by any tight end in NFL history, before a contract dispute dissolved the relationship between Graham and the Saints for eight seasons.
It’s funny for Graham to think about that now that his playing career is done. He arrived to the Saints as an extremely raw prospect who effectively had to learn how to play the game after spending only one season as a college football player at the University of Miami.
He chuckled recalling the first time he stepped into a huddle with Brees and the rest of the Saints collection of impressive talent.
“And he said something that sounded like Spanish to me, and he said it so quickly,” Graham said. “I just looked at him in his eyes like a deer, because I had no idea about these rules, no idea about these words. And he tells me, just do a 10-yard out and get open. I did, and he threw me the ball.”