Position: CB
Age: 28 (Will be 29 by start of 2014-2015 NFL season)
Height: 6'0
Weight: 196 lbs.
College: New Hampshire
Drafted: 5th Round, 168th overall in the 2007 NFL Draft by the Chicago Bears
Previous NFL Team: Baltimore Ravens
Contract Figures: Signed with the Bills on March 12th, 2014 - 4 Years, $16 Million Total, $5.5 Million in 2014.
Corey Graham not only hails from the best city in the world, Buffalo, NY, but he also has the best first name in the world. I love this guy already. Graham attended Turner Carroll High School where he gained 1,700 yards rushing, had an additional 500 yards all-purpose, scored 22 touchdowns and chipped in with 99 tackles on the defensive side of the ball. How bad do you think Graham wanted that extra tackle to get him to 100? Probably pretty bad. Those aren't bad stats for a high school career, except those weren't his career stats, those were his stats as a Senior. Graham was named to the All-Catholic team (for the third time), All-WNY and All-State in 2003. He earned himself a scholarship to play football at the University of New Hampshire.
Corey Graham was a four year starter at CB and one of the league's best return men. Graham was solid in college. He consistently filled the stat sheet on defense and Special Teams. Graham was named captain his senior season due to his leadership skills and productivity on the field. In his Senior season, Graham played a big role in the upset over the Northwestern Wildcats, a D-1 team who has had quite a bit of recent success under head coach Pat Fitzgerald. In the 34-17 victory for UNH, Graham had 8 tackles, forced a fumble, had an interception and chipped in with 20 yards on a kick return. Graham is the only player in UNH history to score a touchdown via interception, kickoff and punt return in their career. Next up, the 2007 NFL Draft.
Graham was drafted in the 5th round by the Chicago Bears where he spent the next 5 seasons. Graham's most productive season in terms of tackles came in 2008 where he started a career-high 9 games and compiled 91 tackles. Graham wasn't much of a turnover machine in Chicago but he was a steady tackler who contributed both on defense and special teams. For as good of a kick returner and punt returner as Graham was in college, he's only had one kick return, coming in 2012 with the Baltimore Ravens but when your NFL team has Devin Hester, you can't expect to be fielding many kicks on Special Teams. That didn't stop him from being selected to the 2011 Pro-Bowl as a Special Teamer.
Prior to the 2012 NFL season, Corey Graham signed with the Baltimore Ravens. Graham was relied upon more in Baltimore, getting more stats and his production showed that. In his two years with the Ravens, Graham had 60 tackles and 74 tackles respectively, as well as a total of 20 passes defended and 6 INT's combined. His 4 INT's in 2013 were the most of his career with one of them being against our beloved Buffalo Bills. In that game against the Bills, Graham also added his season high in tackles with 9. I'll gladly take that type of production at the Ralph every week!
Corey Graham has something many Buffalo Bills players do not, which is playoff experience. He won a Super Bowl with Baltimore in 2012 and played an integral role in their success. He compiled 32 tackles in 4 games, 0.5 sacks, 7 passes defended and intercepted Peyton Manning twice in a 38-35 win over the Broncos.
Internet Rankings:
College: New Hampshire
Drafted: 5th Round, 168th overall in the 2007 NFL Draft by the Chicago Bears
Previous NFL Team: Baltimore Ravens
Contract Figures: Signed with the Bills on March 12th, 2014 - 4 Years, $16 Million Total, $5.5 Million in 2014.
Corey Graham not only hails from the best city in the world, Buffalo, NY, but he also has the best first name in the world. I love this guy already. Graham attended Turner Carroll High School where he gained 1,700 yards rushing, had an additional 500 yards all-purpose, scored 22 touchdowns and chipped in with 99 tackles on the defensive side of the ball. How bad do you think Graham wanted that extra tackle to get him to 100? Probably pretty bad. Those aren't bad stats for a high school career, except those weren't his career stats, those were his stats as a Senior. Graham was named to the All-Catholic team (for the third time), All-WNY and All-State in 2003. He earned himself a scholarship to play football at the University of New Hampshire.
Corey Graham was a four year starter at CB and one of the league's best return men. Graham was solid in college. He consistently filled the stat sheet on defense and Special Teams. Graham was named captain his senior season due to his leadership skills and productivity on the field. In his Senior season, Graham played a big role in the upset over the Northwestern Wildcats, a D-1 team who has had quite a bit of recent success under head coach Pat Fitzgerald. In the 34-17 victory for UNH, Graham had 8 tackles, forced a fumble, had an interception and chipped in with 20 yards on a kick return. Graham is the only player in UNH history to score a touchdown via interception, kickoff and punt return in their career. Next up, the 2007 NFL Draft.
Graham was drafted in the 5th round by the Chicago Bears where he spent the next 5 seasons. Graham's most productive season in terms of tackles came in 2008 where he started a career-high 9 games and compiled 91 tackles. Graham wasn't much of a turnover machine in Chicago but he was a steady tackler who contributed both on defense and special teams. For as good of a kick returner and punt returner as Graham was in college, he's only had one kick return, coming in 2012 with the Baltimore Ravens but when your NFL team has Devin Hester, you can't expect to be fielding many kicks on Special Teams. That didn't stop him from being selected to the 2011 Pro-Bowl as a Special Teamer.
Prior to the 2012 NFL season, Corey Graham signed with the Baltimore Ravens. Graham was relied upon more in Baltimore, getting more stats and his production showed that. In his two years with the Ravens, Graham had 60 tackles and 74 tackles respectively, as well as a total of 20 passes defended and 6 INT's combined. His 4 INT's in 2013 were the most of his career with one of them being against our beloved Buffalo Bills. In that game against the Bills, Graham also added his season high in tackles with 9. I'll gladly take that type of production at the Ralph every week!
Corey Graham has something many Buffalo Bills players do not, which is playoff experience. He won a Super Bowl with Baltimore in 2012 and played an integral role in their success. He compiled 32 tackles in 4 games, 0.5 sacks, 7 passes defended and intercepted Peyton Manning twice in a 38-35 win over the Broncos.
Internet Rankings:
- Rotoworld - 14th CB
- Walter Football - 14th CB
- CBS Sports - 14th CB
- SB Nation - 12th CB
- Yahoo! - 14th CB
- Silver Lining Sports - 8th CB
Role in Buffalo: Graham will come in and fight Nickell Robey to be the teams starting nickel CB. If Gilmore or McKelvin go down at any point this summer, Graham will immediately become the teams starting CB on the outside but right now, if he wants to play, he has to supplant Nickell Robey who played extremely well last year as a UDFA. I expect Graham to win the job but it should be fun to monitor. Graham can play any of the 3 CB spots which Robey couldn't do in case of an injury, so this signing was very important. It gave us some depth at a position we had none of last year. I still have nightmares of Justin Rogers in a Bills jersey. I also expect Graham to team up with Marcus Easley on special teams and take that unit to the next level.
I really like this signing. I had him going to the Bills in my previous Free Agent article and it was nice to see that come true. As I stated above, he strengthens the team on defense and special teams which is huge whenever you can a player to improve 2/3 of your units. He comes in and gives Robey some competition at the nickel-back position in case his rookie year was an anomaly, can backup at the outside CB positions if Gilmore or McKelvin go down and also just rounds out a really solid group of 4 players at the position. This bumps Ron Brooks down to the 5th CB which I think many people are fine with. Brooks is physical but gets too many penalties.
I love this years CB class in terms of depth. I think there are some really solid CB's so the only downfall of this is that we probably won't be spending a draft pick on this position. With that being said, it allows us to use a pick on one of our bigger needs, which is a good thing.
I love this years CB class in terms of depth. I think there are some really solid CB's so the only downfall of this is that we probably won't be spending a draft pick on this position. With that being said, it allows us to use a pick on one of our bigger needs, which is a good thing.
Fun Facts:
- There's nothing fun about Corey Graham. The man is all business.
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