Huh. So, it turns out that the New Orleans Saints-Denver Broncos trade during Saturday’s NFL draft wasn’t a surprise to Adam Trautman — the veteran tight end says he requested that exact trade after growing dissatisfied with his role in the New Orleans offense.
“Absolutely, I was actually hoping to get moved,” Trautman told 9 News Denver’s Mike Klis. “This was initiated by me personally. I’ve been waiting for a little bit for something to materialize and it just happened to be the Broncos, obviously.”
He’s eager to show he can do more than block. Trautman says he doesn’t want to look back on his career in five or ten years and feel like he left too many opportunities untouched: “I feel like I was placed somewhat in a box. They put a limit on what I could contribute and I felt like I could contribute a lot more. I was primarily used as a blocker. I thought I could do more and I didn’t want to get to the end of my career and think I could have done it, caught the ball a little more.”
Trautman hasn’t exactly helped his case by drawing 7 penalty flags in the last two years while dropping a couple of targets in high-leverage situations. If he had shown the Saints he could handle a larger volume of touches or be reliable in critical moments, they would have made a point to send the ball his way. That was true when Payton was calling plays and when Pete Carmichael was on the headset.
“Whatever the case was, the team I was playing for just didn’t let me do it,” Trautman continued, “I want a chance to prove I can do it because I believe I can and I have in the past.”
We’ll see how the change of scenery works out for him. Trautman is right that he showed he can make plays as a receiver in college — but he lacks the straight-line speed to separate from NFL defensive backs, which wasn’t as much of an issue at the FCS level with Dayton. Good luck in Denver, and thanks for all the fish.
