PHILADELPHIA — Brandon Graham had never torn his Achilles tendon before, so once he did, he wasn’t certain what had happened to him, what he was feeling in the lower part of his left leg, and why he was feeling it.
This was Sept. 19, 10 months ago, and an injury cart was wheeling him down a Lincoln Financial Field tunnelway. The Eagles would lose to the 49ers that day, 17-11, and they would lose Graham for the rest of the season, and the word alone — Achilles — conjured worst-case scenarios in his mind.
“Once I knew it was an Achilles,” Graham was saying Wednesday, “I thought, ‘Man, damn, that’s the one that everybody said they didn’t want.’ ”