PHILADELPHIA — Brandon Graham has no idea why he has been so fortunate, but he’s not one to query it.
The Eagles’ loquacious defensive end is in his thirteenth NFL season, all with Philadelphia, and he’s preparing to play in his second Super Bowl in five years.
“Man, it’s definitely a blessing since it took me eight years to get to the primary one,’’ Graham said Thursday before the Eagles’ first practice for Super Bowl LVII against the Chiefs in Glendale, Ariz. “I all the time believed I’d get to 1, but two now? Man.’’
Graham, despite being 34 years old and coming off a season-ending ruptured Achilles tendon in Week 2 last 12 months, isn’t just along for the ride this 12 months for the Eagles. He recorded a career-high 11 sacks as one in every of the keys to the team’s ferocious pass rush.
He, too, was no accidental tourist in that first Super Bowl in 2018, making the play of his life to clinch a riveting 41-33 win over the Patriots in Super Bowl LII with a strip-sack of Tom Brady. That play thwarted yet one more epic comeback drive by the Recent England quarterback, who’d ripped the guts out of the Falcons with an epic rally from a 28-3 deficit the 12 months before.
Super Bowl LII is thought most for Eagles backup quarterback Nick Foles and the “Philly Special’’ trick play that gave them a 22-12 lead on the half.
However the deal was sealed that night by Graham’s sack of Brady with 2:09 remaining and the Eagles clinging to a 38-33 lead in a game wherein neither defense was capable of stop the opposite offense.
“It modified my life,’’ Graham said Thursday of that sack. “It’s definitely a life-changer, man. Can’t no one take that one away. Playing against Brady within the Super Bowl, any individual who you already know has put daggers in people’s hearts with those drives.’’
Then Graham, like Brady a Michigan grad, went light-hearted, as he does higher than anyone within the Eagles’ locker room, and joked: “If anything, I’m joyful since it was one other Michigan guy, something that I can all the time return to Michigan and if I see Brady, we are able to all the time have a very good conversation about that one.’’
Brady, never often called probably the most graceful of losers, spit out these words after that game: “They made one good play at the suitable time.”
“I’m joyful that I used to be capable of do this in my profession — especially with the way it went at first,’’ Graham said.
After he was drafted thirteenth overall in 2010, Graham didn’t turn into a daily starter for the Eagles until after his sixth season. He began only 23 of the primary 80 games he played and recorded just 23.5 sacks in that span. He has 46.5 sacks in six seasons since (not counting the 2021 season, lost to the Achilles injury).
“To make a play like that and in a town that never had a [Super Bowl] championship and we finally brought one … it modified my trajectory of how people view me as a player,’’ Graham said. “And it’s just gotten higher ever since.’’
Graham beat Patriots guard Shaq Mason on that fateful play and hit Brady’s arm, dislodging the ball, which was recovered by rookie Derek Barnett. 4 plays later, the Eagles kicked a field goal to clinch their first Super Bowl victory.
Possibly there needs to be a statue of Graham outside of Lincoln Financial Field as an alternative of the one in every of Foles and coach Doug Pederson. Since the “Philly Special’’ provided the flash, however the Graham sack delivered the money.
Five years faraway from that life-altering play, Graham stays a part of the guts and soul of the Eagles. As one in every of a small group of players on the roster who played in that Super Bowl, he’s also a useful resource for head coach Nick Sirianni.
“He’s definitely a fantastic leader, great teammate, an ideal guy for young guys to look as much as and emulate, understand find out how to come to work daily and have a very good attitude,’’ safety Marcus Epps told The Post.
“He’s one in every of the fellows I’ve grown closest to,’’ Eagles defensive end Robert Quinn, who was acquired in an October trade, told The Post. “Knowing him as a football player and as a human being, he’s one in every of a form. He has a variety of personality, but has some seriousness to him, too. Everyone gravitates toward him. The best way God wanted him to be is as an angel on this earth and on this locker room.’’