Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Fearlessly, Graham still ready to do job
There have been plays made and plays missed, a labor issue and some generous paychecks, wins and losses ... and a parade.
For 11 years, longer than any other active Eagle, Brandon Graham has embraced it all.
He’s ready to embrace a 12th, no matter how difficult that challenge.
“Well, No. 1,” Graham said, “I don’t want to live in fear.”
He said he had a great aunt die from the coronavirus, and so did the wife of his father’s friend, someone close enough to be considered family. But Graham has never retreated from a challenge, not when he was told he was too small to last for long as an NFL edge rusher, not when the Eagles hired the occasional younger player to take his job, and not this spring, which has been the strangest of all.
With no OTA’s, the possibility of a truncated training camp and a re-worked defense, Graham knows the coming season will be a new kind of test. He was put through a similar one in 2011, when a labor stoppage kept players out of camp until the end of July. So with that experience, he will report to work whenever the NFL declares it safe and will try to help the Eagles win at least one more of those golden football trophies.
“Oh, it’s going to be a big challenge,” said Graham, in a video conference from his Michigan home. “Everybody is kind of going to be behind. But the best thing we have going for us is that we have the same coach. We understand his system, and all we have to do is lead by example once we get started.
“Things are going to be a little rusty, because no one has been together and working out as we did in OTAs, getting that chemistry. But what we have going for us is, we have some guys who have played together. We just have to bring the new guys in. And they’ll adjust.”
The NFL has a detailed plan to resume football business, which has been stopped during the pandemic. Eventually, the players will be given regular temperature tests and each team will have a dedicated infectionresponse staff. At first, team facilities will be open to no more than 50 percent of personnel. Strict hygiene rules will be enforced.
All of that is likely to allow NFL games to begin on schedule in September, though perhaps without fans in the stands. Could be … interesting? “The only thing we will do now is hear everybody trash-talk on the sidelines,” Graham figured. “We’re going to try to make the best of it. I don’t know all the plans. But at the beginning I know, for sure, there are not going to be fans. And you are going to hear a lot of trash and a lot of stuff on the sidelines that you don’t normally hear.”
If his history of playfully interacting with cameramen is an indicator, Graham likely will be exposed as one of the NFL’s lead trash-talking soloists. Then again, since the Eagles made him the 13th overall pick in the 2010 draft, he has backed up his spirit with useful football, becoming a second-team All-Pro in 2016 and making a critical fourth-quarter strip-sack of Tom Brady to help dull a New England rally before the Eagles celebrated their only Super Bowl championship.
Since 2012, he has played in all but one regular-season game, recovering from offseason ankle surgery in 2018 to enjoy a productive four-sack season. Rewarded with a three-year, $40 million extension, Graham last season generated 8.5 sacks, recovered two fumbles and was in on 50 tackles.
There are times when he is naturally amazed at how swiftly 10 years passed. But at 32, he was considered valuable enough in his position that the Eagles left him in place while rebuilding much of their defense.
“Man, it’s an honor to be here 11 years,” Graham said. “Brent Celek was here 11 years, and when he was thinking about all his stuff,
I said, ‘Man, I feel so good right now, I have to keep making plays just to stay here.’ And that’s all I’ve been trying to do, leading by example, like I do, and not trying to do too much other than what I’ve been doing.
“I want to keep learning from the best. I learned from Malcolm (Jenkins) when he was here. I know what I’ve got to do, I will keep doing it.”And he will be willing to keep doing that in times of at least a certain health risk.
“I am going to trust the NFL that when they say it is time to go, it’s going to be for our best interests,” Graham said. “That’s what we’ve got to do. In order for us to have some type or normalcy about this situation.
“When they say they have done all their homework and things are going to be better, yeah, there’s going to be some timidness. We won’t do as many bro hugs. But it is going to get back to it. I just feel that you have to trust that everybody is doing the right things and not being reckless with it.
“So I am going to trust it when we get back. That’s it.”