Cap Savings: $5.33 million

Dead Money: $7.33 million

A recent segment featuring Marcedes Lewis and Martellus Bennett shed some light as to the futility of hoping a tight end could ever be truly productive with the Green Bay Packers given the scheme of Mike McCarthy and the preferences of Aaron Rodgers. The free agent signing of Jimmy Graham may have been a doomed project right from the start.

Graham was ordinary, at best, when given opportunities to make a play in 2018. His 55 receptions were his fewest in any of the six seasons in which he has played all 16 games, and his 2 touchdowns matched his previous career low.

Graham was one of 11 tight ends to command at least 75 targets in 2018. Only David Njoku (0.13) and Jordan Reed (0.01) had a lower Target NEP per target than Graham’s clip of 0.22. Only Reed’s 0.49 Reception NEP per target was lower than Graham’s 0.54.

It looked like we’d started to see the beginning of the end for Graham when he was with the Seahawks in 2017. The 2018 season did nothing to suggest otherwise. Cutting Graham would save only $5.33 million while leaving $7.33 million in dead money. However, if the Packers were to designate him as a post-June 1st cut, the dead money would drop to $3.66 million while the savings would hit $9 million.