Is Jimmy Graham soft? (USATSI)
Is Jimmy Graham soft? (USATSI)

When Jimmy Graham walks into the Seahawks locker room before the team's first workout on April 20, don't be surprised if things get a little awkward. 

For one, linebacker Bruce Irvin has been tweeting that he wants to fight Graham. Now, Graham is also going to have to deal with Michael Bennett, who doesn't have a very high opinion of the former Saints tight end. 

After the Seahawks beat the Saints in the playoffs following the 2013 season, Bennett called Graham "one of the softest players" in the NFL. 

In an interview with KIRO-AM in Seattle on Thursday, Bennett was asked if he still stands by his comments.

"I still feel the same way," Bennett said. "Just because he's on my team I don't stop feeling that way."

Not only did Bennett call Graham soft after the Seahawks playoff win in January 2014, but he also called the former Saints tight end "overrated."

"Nobody likes Jimmy Graham. I think he's one of the softest players in the NFL," Bennett said at the time. "I think he's overrated and I really don't like him as a person or as a player... When he's not in the game he's not in the game. He doesn't help on the blocking plays. I think he's just overrated."

Although Bennett is standing by his comments, he did say on Thursday that he'll try and be a good teammate. Graham was traded to the Seahawks on March 10. 

"Obviously, I'm going to be a better teammate to him because he’s on my team," Bennett said. "I can't do the things I was doing to him when we were playing him. But obviously when he comes to our team he's a part of our team so we have a different philosophy than they had with the Saints so the things he was expected to do with the Saints are going to be different when he comes here."

Since the Seahawks offense revolves around Marshawn Lynch, Bennett is fully expecting that Graham will figure out how to block.  

"Obviously, we are a running team so he is going to have to block and do all those things," Bennett said. "I don't feel as harsh as I did at the time because he's my teammate now but at the time he was on time opposite team and we're pretty good and we battled with him a couple of times and I didn't really like that too much."

Both Irvin and Bennett seem to dislike Graham for the same reason and it stems from that January 2014 playoff game. A group of Seahawks players almost got in fight with Graham because Graham was warming up in Seattle's territory and wouldn't leave after the players asked him. 

"He was warming up in our area and I asked him to move, and he said, 'I'm Jimmy.' So I knocked the ball out of his hand and I kicked it across the field," Irvin said in January 2014. "So that's how it started. That's how it started."

You can see a clip of the altercation below. 

After Graham was traded to the Seahawks, Irvin tweeted that he wanted to "fade" Graham, which basically means fight. Irvin also included a video of him training in the tweet. 

So anyway, April 20 should be a fun day for Graham.