This story appears in ESPN The Magazine's September 15 Renegades Issue. Subscribe today!

STANDING IN THE hot Louisiana sun after a recent Saints practice, swarmed by a battalion of reporters with their television cameras, microphones and notebooks, Jimmy Graham couldn't help but feel as if he'd committed a heinous crime. The charges -- though ambiguous -- were serious: dishonor, disrespect, selfishness, immaturity. The evidence had been broadcast on national TV just a few nights earlier when the Saints played the Titans at the Superdome, only Graham's motive was unclear. As the cross-examination intensified, the fifth-year tight end couldn't help but roll his eyes at the theater of the absurd surrounding him.

Jimmy, were your actions a spur-of-the-moment thing, or was there premeditation?

Does this mean there's lingering animosity between you and the Saints?

Jimmy, do you regret what you did?

At one point, Graham chuckled at the severity of the questions. He answered each one with a wink or a playful shrug of his huge shoulders. He cracked a few jokes. He also reminded those in attendance that he'd never do anything to hurt his team (in a game that mattered, at least). He didn't say "I'm sorry."

And why should he? Graham wondered. His horrible offense, after all, was dunking a football over the goalpost. Twice. In a preseason game. "I just love the game," he says. "I have a lot of passion for the game. When I go out there on Sundays, I feel like a little kid. And sometimes I act like it."

True, the NFL competition committee had outlawed goalpost dunking this offseason, declaring that future slams would result in an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty and a fine. But the dunks had been Graham's celebratory move since the 6-foot-7 tight end entered the league in 2010. As the TDs piled up and Graham began to emerge as one of the most dangerous offensive players in the NFL, the dunks became a part of his identity. The Saints even posted a highlight reel of every single Graham dunk from the 2013 season on their website.

"It was a little bit shocking, to be honest with you," Graham says of the negative reaction after the Titans game. "All of a sudden people were making it such a big deal. In the end, guys, I dunked a football over the goalposts because I've done that 41 other times in my career, and because I love this game and I like to have fun. It was like all of a sudden I should feel guilty, like I'm a bad person."

Head coach Sean Payton had been furious, snapping at him as he walked to the bench, then getting right up in Graham's face after the second penalty until the two were in a shouting match. But even after the anger simmered, after Graham and Payton cleared the air in a private meeting (both have agreed to keep what was said between the two of them), and even after the NFL fined Graham $30,000 for two dunks, he wouldn't go so far as to promise it wouldn't happen again.

"I can't guarantee you that," Graham says.

MAYBE JIMMY GRAHAM dunked to vent some frustration. It had been, after all, the most tumultuous and eye-opening offseason of his young career. Whatever innocence he'd once had about the NFL is long gone after a complicated contract dispute. Graham has learned that the New Orleans Saints are a business, not a family. "In the end, I wouldn't change anything," he says. "But it opened my eyes and taught me a lot."

Graham might have come into the NFL raw and unpolished, drafted by the Saints in the third round after only one year of college football at the University of Miami. But he immediately latched onto the right people (Drew Brees, Jonathan Vilma), befriended them, soaked up all the advice they could give and worked his ass off to learn the nuances of the game. Brees often went out of his way to praise Graham's burning desire to improve. Graham believed he was part of something special. Over time, he evolved into one of the league's best pass catchers, regardless of position. "He was the rare guy who could see the benefit of doing things the hard way," says Saints tight ends coach Terry Malone.

Technically, Graham was a tight end, but the Saints -- who spread the field with four and five wide receivers and create mismatches as well as anyone in the NFL -- didn't exactly use him that way. In 2013, Graham lined up in the slot or out wide on 67 percent of his snaps, according to ESPN Stats & Information. "He's a hybrid," Brees says. "He's kind of rewriting the requirements of a person at that position."

But this summer didn't go the way this hybrid expected. After catching 86 passes for 1,215 yards and 16 touchdowns in 2013, the final year of his rookie contract, Graham and the Saints couldn't come to terms on a long-term extension. In the end, the team exercised its right to keep him by using the franchise tag. The Saints wanted to classify him as a tight end, meaning they had to pay him a one-year salary of $7.035 million under the collective bargaining agreement. But Graham felt it was only fair to classify him as a wide receiver, meaning they'd have to pay him $12.3 million for one year. "The first four years of my career, I never complained, I never demanded, I never said anything about money," Graham says. "I did that because I signed a contract four years ago and I'm a man of my word. In the end, I guess I thought [negotiations] would be a lot easier."

Instead, what emerged was a protracted and awkward legal battle. The two sides had to present their case in front of an arbiter in June, and that meant Payton testifying against his own player. Payton backed his employer, knowing that if the Saints lost, they might not be able to keep Graham, but even he didn't seem entirely comfortable with it. "I think it's a byproduct of a little bit of an antiquated system with regard to franchise numbers," the coach says.