Stumping for forgiveness after off-field missteps
PHILADELPHIA >> It’s the first day for veterans to report to training camp at the NovaCare Complex, and not just another Thursday practice, what with downpours chasing all the convention phonies off Pattison Ave. and police on bemused watch seemingly everywhere. A rather laid-back South Philly scene, probably because the Bernie Bros. crowd hasn’t quite rolled out of their hostel beds as yet.
Despite that, it’s still not the most comfortable place for respective Eagles Nigel Bradham and Nelson Agholor to be, since they’ve already had their fair summer’s share of cops.
“You don’t want that to be a part of your legacy at any time throughout your career,” said Bradham, a free agent signee at linebacker this summer who is less than a week removed from being arrested in Miami Beach for an alleged assault.
“This is my first year here,” the veteran linebacker said almost apologetically. “I’m just getting started. I definitely didn’t want to start with that being out there.”
“That” is a charge that Bradham slugged a guy, alternately described as a “cabana boy” and a “50-year-old hotel worker” in various published accounts in recent days, who somehow found himself in a confrontation with a veteran NFL player over ... beach chairs.
Yeah, please don’t ask. There are lawyers listening and some of them can even read.
“The case is still ongoing,” the 26-year-old Bradham said. “It’s under investigation, so I can’t really tell you exactly what happened right now. The main thing is pretty much trying to come out here and be focused and be ready for the season. It’s a lot of negative attention, obviously ... it’s something that happened and something that I can’t control.
“I’ve got to continue to stay focused on football.”
From Doug Pederson’s mouth to his ears ... but credit should be due to both Bradham and Agholor to include statements of regret for getting involved in sticky situations at the start summer camp.
Certainly, the muggy season is like Happy Hour for the NFL’s youthful membership. Rarely does a day go by in the offseason that somebody with league ties isn’t getting charged with something or being embroiled in some kind of embarrassing controversy.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that ... you know, from a sports writer’s perspective.
So welcome to Philadelphia, of Nigel Badham Bradham.
“Your first impression is everything,” Bradham said sincerely, “especially to the fans. It’s just unfortunate for me that I didn’t get a chance to play first and at least let them see me play before they got an opinion about me.
“I’ve pretty much been good my whole life ... staying out of trouble. I’ve been in two incidents my whole life and this was the first time I’ve ever been arrested. It’s one of those things where I learned a lot. I was in a situation where things happened that I couldn’t ... prevent, so it was those things.”
Bradham made it sound as if there was fault on both sides, and he discounted the possibility of filing a countercharge. Ah, but these things usually go away when a guy’s agent pays a settlement fee to the allegedly aggrieved party and they go back to their beach chair and umbrella stand and life of anonymity. Case closed. Meanwhile, across part of the phony-turf field in the Eagles’ “Bubble” on this stormy practice day, Agholor, a 23-year-old receiver out to prove that his awful rookie season was an anomaly (best of luck with that), launches into his mandatory media confession.
His “brush with the law” was in early June, and turned into a life lesson about how necessary it is to act like a real gentleman when you’re inside a so-called gentleman’s club.
In this instance, Agholor was reportedly inside Cheerleaders — no need to describe the place since you always hear the commercials on sports talk radio — when he got in a little dispute over money with a, um, dancer. She promptly yelled sexual assault.
It only took several weeks for the Philadelphia district attorney’s office to strip this case down to its bare facts, and find no reason to charge Agholor with anything more than well-deserved extreme embarrassment.
“For a few days I sat back and I was in shock,” Agholor said. “But after a while I had to realize that I put myself in this one of situation and all I can do is grow. Find different ways to get closer to my family, get closer to the people who have my back and just continue to grow.”
Agholor, a native of Nigeria, is close to his parents, older brother and younger sister in what has been characterized as a very religious family. But hey, young guys make mistakes.
Just look down the street at those “Bernie Bros.” after all...
“The way the world is, you just have to have faith,” Agholor said. “I just had to let my lawyer handle that and the people that are supposed to do that. I prayed with my family. And I’m just going to try and make the right decisions from here on out.
“What I did gives everyone enough to say, ‘Hey, you did something wrong?’ At the end of the day, they have every right to do that. But as a man, I have to do something to show them the type of person and the type of man I’ll be.”
Asked if the incident, which he certainly didn’t take as lightly as others might, has made him a better person, Agholor answered, “100 percent. They always say whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. And I swear, I feel way stronger.”
Maybe now that feeling can be manifested on the football field ... as soon as the storm clouds and sappy delegates clear out.