PHILADELPHIA — Brandon Graham posed at his locker with a green and white Kangol cap clashing with a Starter jacket featuring bright shades of pink and blue woven underneath a Super Bowl emblem.
The impromptu color combination may have been a bit ambitious, but the longest-tenured Eagles player is trying to enjoy the moments as they come during the lead-up to the Eagles’ Super Bowl LVII matchup against the Kansas City Chiefs on Feb. 12.
Graham, 34, has plenty to enjoy while preparing for next week’s trip to Arizona and the game that will follow. He said he expected to make it to at least one title game in his career, but the second one — coming off an Achilles tendon tear in 2021 and a resurgent 2022 season when he reached a career high in sacks — has been that much sweeter.
“This has been the best [year] for me,” Graham said. “Because who would have thought in Year 13 that I would still be here after we won the Super Bowl the first time and how things went last year with me tearing my Achilles. Now coming off the Achilles and having one of my best years and I’m not even playing half the snaps I was playing previously, that’s the difference for me.”
Graham is one of just seven players remaining from the 2017 Eagles team that won the first Super Bowl in franchise history. He finished the regular season with a career-high 11 sacks while playing just 43% of the Eagles’ defensive snaps. Aside from last season, when Graham left one of the two games he played early with the ruptured Achilles tendon, the 2010 first-round pick hadn’t occupied such a limited role since 2014 when his Eagles tenure teetered on the brink.
Given how well he played in a reserve role, it should come as no surprise that Graham has reiterated several times this season that he wants to play one or two more years. Growing up an admirer of Ray Lewis’ career with the Baltimore Ravens, Graham said his initial goal when he was drafted was to play 15 seasons with one team to emulate Lewis’ 17.
Still, watching Tom Brady, a player he will forever be connected with, announce his retirement on Wednesday stirred something within Graham.
“I felt that one this time,” Graham said. “I really felt that because you can see that he was ready to let it go a little bit, as far as crying. He had a hell of a career, man. He shouldn’t have no regrets, even if this year didn’t go as well as he wanted to go. People will always remember you for all the great things you’ve done. ... Brady shouldn’t hang his head about anything, man.”
Graham and Brady’s connection in history is about more than their shared alma mater, of course. Much to Graham’s enjoyment, he may have made the play that haunts his fellow Michigan man most.
When reflecting on Brady’s storied career, the visual of Graham’s left hand knocking the football from the quarterback’s grasp in the final minutes of Super Bowl LII in 2018 stands out as one of the few times Brady did not come out on top.
It’s not hyperbole, Graham said, to call the strip-sack that secured the Eagles’ 41-33 win over Brady and the New England Patriots the type of play that changes lives.
“Definitely a life-changer, man,” Graham said. “It changed my life. Can’t nobody take that one away, going against Brady in the Super Bowl, somebody who you know can put daggers in people’s hearts, especially on that last drive.
“It changed my trajectory of how people viewed me,” Graham added. “It’s just gotten better ever since.”
Although Graham felt something watching the video Brady released announcing his retirement, it wasn’t pity. Any sympathy he might have felt went by the wayside with the reminder of Brady’s next act: a broadcasting career with Fox that will reportedly net him $375 million over 10 years.
“He’s definitely got an opportunity with that big deal that he got,” Graham said. “I don’t feel sorry for him.”
