FOXBORO -- Daniel Graham feels he is having a good season for the New England Patriots.
Until yesterday, not many had noticed. After yesterday, no one can ignore him.
Graham, the Patriots' first-round draft choice last year, hauled in seven passes for 110 yards, both easily career bests, in New England's 9-3 victory over Cleveland.
"The media, all they see is big catches," Graham said. "I've been blocking real good. That's one of the things that gets overlooked. With my blocking, I feel like I've been playing good games this year. Now the passes come and everybody thinks I finally had a breakout game."
Graham, son of former NFL linebacker Tom Graham, said it all matter-of-factly, without any animosity. Still, he made it clear he has heard the rumblings that he was not living up to his status as a first-round pick, that some fans were disappointed in him.
"That's how it is. I know people judge your game on how many catches you have," he said.
Anyone judging that way had to call Graham one of the stars of yesterday's game. After hauling in only 15 passes all last year, and nine in the first seven games this season (he missed time with a shoulder injury), Graham went over the 100-yard mark for the first time in his career and became the second straight Pat to reach that mark -- Troy Brown had 131 yards last week in Miami.
Christian Fauria has been singing Graham's praises for some time. Fauria is the man who has kept Graham's playing time limited because he has performed so well as the starter at tight end. Fauria was touting Graham again after the victory over the Browns.
"He was ready. He was prepared," Fauria said. "Coming off an injury, he hadn't played in a couple weeks. He came in and stepped it up big time. It's not something like, 'Oh my God, I can't believe it.' We knew he had it in him all the time. I'm not surprised at all."
"He hasn't really played a lot of football," Fauria continued. "The more reps he's going to get, the more looks he's going to get, I think the sky's the limit. In this offense, the tight end is huge, especially for a guy who can run downfield as fast as he can."
The guy who threw Graham the ball, quarterback Tom Brady, also was expecting it.
"I think everybody's been waiting for Daniel to really step up and do these type of things," Brady said. "He had some good opportunities today. You get a lot of plays in this game plan that were going toward him.
"He does a great job of running after the catch. He's just a load to bring down. He's got great hands. He's a smart kid. Hopefully we can just keep him involved like that. Whether it's Dan this week, or Troy (Brown) last week or Deion (Branch) the week before that, or David Patten, I think we do a good job of spreading the ball around. Everyone stays involved. (Bethel) Johnson had a big catch to start the day. We are going to need to continue to distribute the ball to keep defenses off particular people."
"The times when I went to him, that was where I was intending to go based on the coverage," Brady went on. "Some of the formations, we got Daniel in good position to get the ball versus what they were doing. He just made good plays on the ball. Those seam routes that he was catching, those aren't easy catches. There are a lot of guys coming and you know you are going to get it. He makes the catch and sure enough he breaks a few tackles. He's done a really Graham showed the ability to go deep, most notably with a 38-yard catch in the third quarter.
"A couple of times we hit him down the seam and they were in post safety coverage and he was able to hit the seam there between the corner and the safety, a couple good throws and good catches," said coach Bill Belichick. "It looked like pretty tight coverage on a couple of those. Tom put the ball on the back shoulder of the linebacker . . . and Dan made a couple of real nice adjustments and some nice catches."
"It wasn't like we went into the game knowing that he was going to have whatever he had," Belichick added. "Tom saw him going up the seam and hit him."
The plays became even bigger because Graham broke tackles and kept fighting for yards.
"When I catch the ball, I feel like no one can tackle me," Graham said. "That's part of my game."
Until now, blocking had been the biggest part of Graham's game. Now his pass catching has been put on display, too.
