Carroll 'couldn't believe' Saints wanted to trade Jimmy Graham

The trade of tight end Jimmy Graham from the New Orleans Saints to the Seattle Seahawks in March came as a shock to pretty much everyone, including Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll.

During an appearance on 950 AM KJR in Seattle on Wednesday morning, Carroll said that he expressed disbelief when he was first told about the possibility of Graham coming to Seattle.

"I couldn't believe they'd give him up," Carroll said. "I (said) 'Why would they do that? Why would they give him up?' Because we didn't know the whole story.

"Later we figure out that they had somewhat of a falling out with some issues about his franchise tag number and all that kind of stuff and they had to go to court with it and it was a very difficult situation and all that. It made him available. All the way through the process, I couldn't believe they were doing it. (General manager John Schneider) kept moving it, and it was going along, and I thought they were going to pull the plug on it, but they didn't."

The Saints' loss is Seattle's gain though, and Carroll is happy to have Graham, saying that things have worked out despite some of the jawing Graham had in the past with Seahawks players.

"We've acquired a great football player and a great kid," Carroll said. "He's mixed so well with our players, which you might have thought would be different because there was some talk and some yapping, but that was just competitive stuff."


(sea.247sports.com)