{"id":10970,"date":"2014-08-18T11:34:31","date_gmt":"2014-08-18T15:34:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/?p=10970"},"modified":"2014-08-18T11:34:31","modified_gmt":"2014-08-18T15:34:31","slug":"jimmy-graham-says-he-has-to-stop-dunking-the-football","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/2014\/08\/18\/jimmy-graham-says-he-has-to-stop-dunking-the-football\/","title":{"rendered":"Jimmy Graham says he has to stop dunking the football"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/files\/2014\/08\/jimmygraham.jpg\" alt=\"jimmygraham\" width=\"594\" height=\"456\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-10946\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/files\/2014\/08\/jimmygraham.jpg 594w, https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/files\/2014\/08\/jimmygraham-300x230.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 594px) 100vw, 594px\" \/><br \/>\nNew Orleans Saints tight end Jimmy Graham twice dunked the football over the crossbar of the goal post in Friday&#8217;s preseason game. Each time he was hit with a 15-yard penalty earning the ire of head coach Sean Payton.<\/p>\n<p>Talking on Sunday to <a href=\"http:\/\/espn.go.com\/nfl\/story\/_\/id\/11369154\/jimmy-graham-new-orleans-saints-jeopardize-team\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">ESPN<\/a>, Graham said he &#8220;would never do anything to hurt the team&#8221; once the regular season rolls around.<\/p>\n<p>While Graham is certainly not about to embrace the new rule which shuts down his touchdown celebration he knows that doing so is beneficial to the Saints.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/c-mogiRx7ZE\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You know, for four years and however many touchdowns, I&#8217;ve always dunked it. And I just gotta stop doing that now,&#8221; said Graham.<\/p>\n<p>Payton chased down Graham and the two had a brief shouting match following Graham&#8217;s second flag on Friday. Since then both parties have talked and are back on the same page.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The rule [is] unfortunate because I just love the game. I have a lot of passion for the game. And when I go out there on Sunday, it&#8217;s fun for me,&#8221; Graham said. &#8220;And I feel like a little kid out there. And sometimes I act like it.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New Orleans Saints tight end Jimmy Graham twice dunked the football over the crossbar of the goal post in Friday&#8217;s preseason game. Each time he was hit with a 15-yard penalty earning the ire of head coach Sean Payton. Talking on Sunday to ESPN, Graham said he &#8220;would never do anything to hurt the team&#8221; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10946,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[425],"tags":[426,423,38,216],"coauthors":[4],"class_list":["post-10970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-front","tag-jimmy-graham","tag-new-orleans-saints","tag-nfl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10970"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10971,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10970\/revisions\/10971"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10970"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=10970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}