I find that many people bring up the possibility that Graham is "maxed out".
I have to disagree. I see specific ways for him to get better at the NFL level. I call them "low hanging fruit" because they are IMMEDIATE fixes that provide upside, even as a rookie. I don't consider serious technique shifts and adjusting to the speed of the game to be low hanging fruit. Those take time. But the following, they should be able to be done immediately:
Low Hanging Fruit #1: Lose weight. He's at 268 right now and might have even played heavier than that. He doesn't need to be that big. He'll need to keep that lower body muscle (a Parcells favorite) but his upper body girth can afford to come in a little I think. I think hard core weight trainers will tell you that losing weight and gaining weight are different. They're not 1-for-1 scales. Normally you lose a pound to gain speed and the cost is some strength or some mass that you get to throw around. You gain a pound and you lose speed and the cost is more strength and more mass to throw around. But the cost/benefit relationship for losing weight is more advantageous than that for gaining weight. Normally most college guys will need to gain some weight in order to do what they did in college. Graham is one of those that would be asked to lose a little weight I think. As such, he should gain a lot of speed and explosion, and not lose too much strength. It's something that can be done quickly that could potentially make him a more effective player.
Low Hanging Fruit #2: Get off the snap. For whatever reason one of the more maddening aspects of his game has been that he is very inconsistent reacting to the snap. This needs to change. The benefits of his getting off the snap more quickly with his first step quickness are just too great. When I see him really on the ball during games, either timing the snap or reacting to it with a hair trigger, he has been damn near unblockable. He can do it, this is what coaching is for, I tent to doubt it's some innate physical or mental limitation.
Low Hanging Fruit #3: Conditioning/Hustle. As I said another maddening aspect of his game is that as a hybrid DT/DE, he didn't really hustle as much as I would like. This may be confusing because he's known as a "high motor" guy. I think there's every-snap motor, and then there's snap-to-whistle motor. He has every-snap motor. Michigan can be out of a game, getting their butt handed to them, and you will RARELY be able to pick out a play where you can say...ok, Brandon Graham was dogging it on that one. He'll still make some pretty incredible plays, sacks...TFLs...punt blocks. But his snap-to-whistle motor does not run high. He's not hustling from across a formation to get to the ball. This is again where coaches make their money. He hustled at the Senior Bowl, saw it with my own two eyes. It can be done. Was it because he was rotating? He played 40 out of 67 snaps at the Senior Bowl. If it were a Michigan game that probably would have been more like 55 out of 67 snaps. It could be because he played a position that was just less energy intensive...rushing from the outside as opposed to banging around the interior. Then again it could be because he was properly motivated. Whether it's motivation, conditioning, position or rotation, doesn't matter. He showed that his snap-to-whistle motor CAN improve over what I saw at Michigan, the secret's out of the bag...and that means this is a low hanging fruit to make him an even better football player.
Low Hanging Fruit #4: Outside Spacing. He rarely got the opportunity at Michigan to genuinely line up as a 7-Technique (edge rusher) and go after the QB. He's got such tremendous power though, and such great explosion, that on those rare occasions he was often able to smash straight through to the QB making it look just plain easy. It was scary how easy he could make that look. Could it be that just lining this guy up wider will make him a better pass rusher before you even take to his technique with a blow torch and soldering iron? I would sure love to find out.
