The Miami Dolphins watched one tight end - Charles Clay - walk away to the AFC East rival Buffalo Bills and brought another - Jordan Cameron - into the fold via a lucrative free agent contract this offseason.
That's a fairly significant amount of turnover for a position that has seen something of a revival in recent years thanks to the development of several big, physical, athletic pass-catchers who play more like giant wide receivers than the historically in-line blockers they once used to be.
It seems that perhaps the very best of those revolutionary new tight ends, Jimmy Graham, almost ended up as a member of the Dolphins.
A former member of the New Orleans Saints, Graham was shipped to the Seattle Seahawks at the outset of the latest league year in exchange for a 2015 first-round pick and center Max Unger.
Only, according to a report from Ian Rapoport of NFL.com, the Dolphins nearly nabbed the athletic pass-catcher for themselves.
"Interested to learn the #Dolphins finished 2nd to the #Seahawks in the Jimmy Graham trade. MIA was aggressive in trying to upgrade at TE," Rapoport tweeted late Tuesday from the NFL's owners meetings in Phoenix.
Graham has been an absolute monster since entering the league as a third-round pick for New Orleans in 2012. After a good rookie season that saw him make 31 catches for 356 yards and five touchdowns, Graham blew up.
In the following four seasons, Graham has not finished with less than 85 receptions, 889 yards or nine touchdowns. He topped out at 1,310 yards on 99 catches in 2011 and sixteen touchdowns in 2013.
While Cameron is no slouch - he posted an 80-catch, 917-yard seasons in 2013 - he's not the same caliber of target that Graham is and he's also dealt with a plethora of injury issues, most notably concussions, in his four-year NFL career.
Cameron and soon-to-be third-year tight end Dion Sims will presumably form a good duo for the Dolphins, but it's hard not to wonder at would could have been for Miami and young signal-caller Ryan Tannehill had Graham ended up a member of the franchise.
